An Elsanna Fairy Tale
by Kurrent
Summary: This is a different approach for me, telling a story within another story. It is most definitely an Elsanna story, though, as their love is a major theme through both levels of this story. It's a bit different, but try to stick with it and let me know what you think! This will be three chapters. Elsa/Anna, OC/OC.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** And now we come to my Fairy Tale. This will be three chapters, and I mean it this time. I'm writing this story in a different format/style, because that's how I conceived of this originally. I hope it works out as well as I think it will. The Elsanna is relatively subtle in this first chapter, but that's deliberate. However, I think you'll get a very clear idea of where I'm going with this story's Elsa and Anna in this chapter, and I'm pretty excited about it. I hope you enjoy it too!

I do want to point out that my original inspiration for writing a story like this was the amazing work EthneWinter has done on DeviantArt. Sadly, her work remains incomplete and untouched for some time, but the idea of telling an Elsanna story as a flashback/fairy tale struck me as a very powerful concept. Obviously I don't have the amazing artwork to illustrate a story like Ethne did, but I wanted to give it a shot at telling the Elsanna fairy tale that I came up with some time ago.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Frozen or any of the Disney characters held within. All of them are being used under Fair Use, and I have not and will not make any profit from this story.

 **An Elsanna Fairy Tale**

Chapter 1: Pledge

by Jo K.

 _Run run run away_

 _Like a train rolling off the track_

 _Got the truth being left behind_

 _Fall between the tracks_

 _Standing on broken dreams_

 _Never losing sight_

 _Just spread your wings_

-Van Halen, "Dreams"

—O—

"Why the fuck couldn't they have sent me to goddamn Paris?"

Danielle Brooks was not happy. She was twenty-seven, single (thanks to a useless piece of shit ex-boyfriend who had emptied her bank account and stolen her best friend along the way), and now apparently stuck somewhere north of Norway in the face of a winter storm that was either going to end the world or simply strand her in the middle of nowhere for two to four weeks... which might as well have been the same thing.

"Ahhh!" she yelled into her cell phone, which kept replaying an incredibly unhelpful recording about all circuits being busy, or not working, or something else equally worthless when it came to getting back to civilization. With a vicious stab of the screen, hard enough that her short fingernail actually clacked against the glass, she turned her phone off, then slammed it down into her purse.

"Bad day?" asked the girl driving the Land Rover through the swirling blizzard.

Dani looked up, meeting the girl's bright eyes looking back at her through the rear-view mirror. "Shouldn't you be watching the road?" she said, a bit more angrily than she had intended—the girl was doing her best to try to beat the storm to the airport, after all.

"Why? I can't see the road even if I'm looking at it, thanks to the snow," the girl replied blithely, grinning as she finished.

Dani opened her mouth, only to freeze as her lips turned into a smile. "That was good," she said calmly. "Your English is a hell of a lot better than my Norwegian."

"You'll learn," replied the girl, an odd comment from someone Dani really wasn't planning on ever seeing again after she got out of this northernmost corner of Norway. "I lived in the United States for a while," the girl added with a grin.

She really had mostly herself to blame, after all, for not double-checking the travel arrangements the magazine had made for her. She hadn't caught the one-letter difference between the name of the tiny airport barely big enough to land a prop plane and the airport (and larger city) where she was _supposed_ to have flown for her assignment on the Northern Lights, and apparently neither had anyone back at _Smithsonian_ magazine.

The slowing of the Land Rover broke her reverie of quiet self-castigation. "Are we stopping?" she asked, looking out the windshield, only to see a blanket of swirling snow. _How is she seeing anything in this?_

"We're turning around, while we can still get back to town," said the girl driving, shifting into Reverse as soon as the vehicle came to a stop. "The bridge and the mountain pass are both going to be closed."

"How do you know that?" Dani said, the shrillness in her voice betraying the apprehension at being stranded here in this little slice of the Arctic for days, possibly weeks.

"Experience," replied the girl, looking into the mirror as she deftly turned the vehicle around, shifting back into gear as soon as they were pointed back toward town.

After several tense minutes, including one brief moment of skidding during a fierce crosswind, the snow-shrouded homes on the outskirts of the city of Arendelle were a welcome sight for Dani. She looked down to see her left hand tightly clenched around the door handle; with conscious effort, her fingers slowly uncurled, tendons already aching with stiffness from how tightly she had been holding onto the leather.

The snow was falling heavily, mostly obscuring the figures of the few still out walking, each tightly bundled up against the cold and biting wind. Colorful signs could be seen on multiple buildings, but the snow kept Dani from being able to discern anything about them. _And they're in Norwegian, anyway_ , she thought glumly to herself.

As the Land Rover stopped on the side of the street, the young woman driving turned off the engine and turned around. "We're going in," she said simply before opening the door and stepping out into the swirling snowstorm.

Left sitting in silence, it took Dani three seconds before she quickly opened the door and took off trailing the woman ahead of her, walking quickly but carefully through the snow. Her skin tingled where the snow fell against her face and neck, but the wind and sharp cold it carried stung where it made contact. Dani kept her mouth tightly closed as she leaned forward, trying to hurry but not so much as to fall on a patch of ice. When she finally crossed the threshold of a bright blue door into comforting warmth, she quickly closed the door behind her, pushing against the surprisingly strong wind and interrupting the flurry of snow trailing in behind her.

"Oh my GOD!" she moaned loudly, only to realize that she was in what appeared to be a local pub; thankfully it appeared to be empty save for her driver, a waitress cleaning a table in the very back of the pub, and a woman standing behind the bar, all three of whom were openly staring at her.

"Sorry," she said softly, not realizing she had been quite so loud.

The driver turned away from Dani and walked to the bar, where she and the bartender began conversing, most likely in Norwegian. Seeing nothing better to do, Dani brushed snow off of her coat, then made her way to the bar as well, where she stood just behind and beside her driver. While Dani only picked up the rare word— _snow_ , _airport_ and _storm_ she had already learned quite well—the tone of the conversation between the two young women was friendly and casual.

Finally, after several minutes, the conversation between the two ended.

"Tove says that there no rooms available in the whole city," the driver said, an odd smile on her face.

"What?!" Dani nearly shouted.

"BUT... she's going to let you stay with her until you can get to the airport."

Taken aback by that, Dani froze, staring at the curly-haired brunette she had known for the last two hours. "But I don't know her," she said. "And she doesn't know me."

"Well, the way I see it, you really don't have much choice. Unless you want to sleep on a pool table here."

Dani blinked her eyes twice. Was this seriously happening?

"Karla here tells me that you're a reporter, and that you seem nice, and that she's ninety percent sure you're not a serial killer," said the woman behind the bar, prompting Dani to turn and regard her closely.

A warm smile crossed her oval face, blue eyes nearly shining in the pub's patchy lighting beneath straight bangs of dark brown hair. She was beautiful by anyone's standards, even more stunning than the typical beautiful Scandinavian woman, of which Dani had already seen more than enough over the last few hours to make herself feel inadequate in the looks department. Her English was almost unaccented, spoken with an ease and humor that told Dani that she had been speaking it for quite some time. "Hi," the woman said, extending her hand. "I'm Tove."

"Um, I'm... Dani," Dani replied, thrown off at the other woman's easy demeanor. "Dani Brooks."

"Karla told me about the mix-up with the airport. I have a spare bedroom upstairs that you can use until the roads are cleared."

"Thank you," Dani said, smiling as she nodded. "How long you think it'll take for the roads to be cleared?"

"Oh, hmm," Tove said, her throat vibrating slightly as she hummed to herself, a content smile on her face. "Probably two. Maybe three."

"Two days?!" Dani blurted out.

"Oh, no, no!" Tove said, laughing along with the other girl. "Two to three _weeks_ , more than likely."

Dani wobbled slightly for several seconds, and it was only the swift thinking of the girl standing beside her that allowed her to roughly guide the American into a high-backed stool as she weakly plopped backward.

Tove immediately grabbed a clean white towel and ran it under the nearest faucet, saturating it with cool water before wringing it out and folding it carefully. She moved out from behind the bar and gently pressed the cool rag to Dani's forehead, tsking softly at the woman's ashen color. "Is she dramatic like this?" she asked Karla in Norwegian, getting a shrug of the other woman's shoulders in reply.

"Just met her two hours ago. She's been upset about the weather and being stranded here in general, though."

Dani felt her senses slowly return as she heard the two women converse softly, the words unfamiliar but the tone gentle. She blinked her eyes slowly and turned her head to the right, only to see a pair of pale blue eyes looking down at her with concern in their depths.

She swallowed dryly. "Thanks," she mumbled roughly, reaching up to hold the washrag against her forehead. "Sorry about passing out there."

Tove smiled, but the worry never left her eyes. "You've had an eventful morning, it sounds like."

"After flying all night," Dani added weakly. "Could I get some water, please? To drink?"

"Sure," Tove said. She looked at Karla, who couldn't have been more than nineteen. "How are you going to get home?"

The girl shrugged. "Probably walk. Not risking the company's car on the ice. Is it too early to get something to eat?"

"I think I can make something for you," Tove said pleasantly. "Astrid!" she said more loudly, causing the woman cleaning tables in the back to look up. "Can you get Karla here a menu and a table?" Getting a nod in return, Tove gestured for the girl to move to one of the tables, all of which were currently empty due to the storm.

Dani took a moment to look around the pub. It was pleasant enough, with it early in the day and the pub well-lit, so the dark wood furnishings and walls seemed cozy, not gloomy or oppressive. A large Arendellan flag hung on the wall at the back of the pub, its green, purple and gold shining under the soft light illuminating it. Two dart boards hung further down the wall, with pool tables in another corner of the pub.

Dani turned around in the stool, grateful for the tall back supporting her; she still felt slightly woozy, and she didn't trust herself to try to stand just yet. She cast her gaze to the large windows opening out onto the street outside; the gouts of snow blowing back and forth were far worse than any blizzard she had ever seen despite having living in New York City for most of her life. She could only catch glimpses of the black Land Rover parked just outside, less than thirty feet from the door to the pub, from time to time; seeing the buildings across the two-lane street was impossible.

After a few minutes of watching the storm, though, her eyes drifted to a brightly colored poster hanging on the wall beside the window. The poster showed two women dressed in what Dani assumed was traditional clothing of colorful long dresses with bright embroidery, waving to whomever was viewing the poster. One, a platinum blonde with long, straight hair, was slightly taller than the other, a redhead with her hair twisted into twin braids; they were standing shoulder to shoulder, holding hands while they appeared to be greeting, maybe welcoming, anyone who chose to look at the poster. There was writing on the poster, but Dani couldn't make it out from where she was sitting.

Carefully she stood, testing her balance before releasing the stool. Gingerly she took a test step, smiling when the room no longer threatened to spin out from under her. She walked across the wooden floor, her boots making a soft clomping sound that felt somehow comforting to her. As she reached the poster, she was able to appreciate some details she couldn't see from her previous position at the bar.

The blonde had bright blue eyes, with freckles so soft as to almost be suggestions rather than fact. The redhead had deep blue-green eyes and a face full of freckles scattered across her youthful features. They both appeared to be in their early to mid-twenties, and both were smiling in a way that made Dani smile herself without even realizing it, as if they were sharing some great secret that threatened to spill forth should they open their mouths.

"It's for the festival," called a voice from back across the pub.

Dani turned to see who was talking to her, but she did so a bit too abruptly. She belatedly recognized it as Tove, but too late to keep from reacting. The room briefly spun, but she steadied herself against the wall, being careful not to crumple the poster.

Tove approached her quickly, her right hand hovering just over Dani's arm but hesitant to make contact. "Why don't you go lie down for a bit?" the brunette said, her voice softer than before. "You've had a crazy morning. I'll help you upstairs and show you my apartment and your room and bathroom, then I'll make you some hot tea and bring it to you in just a bit. You can just relax and try to wrap your mind around everything that's happened today."

Dani just nodded mutely. "Thanks," she managed to utter just above a whisper, offering a weak attempt at a smile and getting a much brighter one in return for her effort.

—O—

The vibration in the walls and floor were what woke Dani up several hours later. It was still light outside, and the intense whiteness of the blizzard served to partially illuminate the bedroom she was in despite the curtains being drawn tightly closed. She got up and moved to the window, sliding the curtains to the side; for her efforts, she was greeted with a view out of a storybook.

The blustering, whirling storm had eased, replaced by thick flakes of brilliant white snow lazily descending on a city that looked adorable from her higher vantage point. No buildings in her line of sight were taller than four stories, so what appeared to be the entire city stretched out before her, giving way after several blocks to fields, farms and small houses. In turn, those structures eventually yielded to the forest between the city and what passed for suburbs and the steep, towering mountains that seemed to stretch up to caress the gray sky. Everything was coated with a thick layer of brilliant white, glittering and pristine.

"God, it really _is_ beautiful," Dani muttered to herself. "Even with the blizzard."

In fact, the thick blanket of snow lining every roof, every street, every tree and sign and object unable to escape the steady fall of precipitation, only served to make the tableau presented before her look even more picturesque.

Without any conscious thought, her hands sought out one of her camera bags, and she was taking pictures through the clear glass of the window with her Nikon N90 camera before she even realized what she was doing. After only a second of deliberation, she retrieved the top blanket off the bed she had been sleeping in—it smelled _wonderful_ , whatever it had been washed in—and wrapped herself in it before opening the window, capturing another two dozen shots of the glittering, gleaming arctic landscape before she registered the cold nipping at her face and bare feet.

As a shiver rolled down her body, she tugged the window closed, brushing the few flakes that had drifted inside to the floor.

She found a pair of skinny-fit jeans and tugged them on, followed by a turtleneck and light sweater; even with the heat on in the building and being on the third floor, it was still colder than she would've liked. A pair of thick socks and a light pair of boots went on next; she wasn't planning on getting back out in this weather, and she'd need a coat if she did for some reason, but her feet were cold, and the socks and boots were quite warm. She wrapped a scarf around her neck, tucking it back far enough that it wouldn't interfere with her hands, grabbed her Nikon and left the bedroom.

As she emerged onto the first floor, she nearly hit the server Astrid with the door when she opened it abruptly. "Sorry!" she said, weathering the younger woman's irritated glare for a moment before the server turned away, carrying a tray full of food and drinks out into the pub... which was filled to capacity.

"What the hell..." Dani said softly to herself, looking around at what had to be nearly two hundred people occupying every table, booth, stool and seat, with several more standing around playing pool, throwing darts, laughing, talking and otherwise seeming to have a wonderful time.

She looked out the pub's main window again, just to confirm that it _was_ still snowing, and that there _was_ at least half a meter of snow accumulated outside. At least.

She blinked a few times, but the image of the snow-covered sights outside stubbornly remained visible. "Are these people crazy?" she said softly, barely trusting her eyes.

Finally she began making her way from the anteroom between the bar and the kitchen which housed the door leading upstairs. The chatter resounding through the pub sounded much the same as it would have in English; despite not catching specific words, she easily felt the mood was happy and upbeat, despite the weather.

"DANI!"

Hearing her name called through the din caused her to jump slightly; she turned to see Tove, a grin on her bright face, waving her to come over to the bar.

Picking her way through the crowd, an eclectic mix of mostly younger people in their twenties and thirties but with some older and a few who appeared to be in their late teens, Dani slowly made her way to the bar, where Tove was hurriedly wiping down a place at the closest end of the bar, where a seat appeared to have just been vacated.

"My best seat in the house," the dark-haired woman said with a smile as Dani took her seat in the high-backed stool, the Arendellan's blue eyes eyes alight with energy. "You must be hungry!" Without waiting for an answer, she slid a leather folder in front of Dani. "Here's a menu. Whatever you want is on the house, because you've had such a bad day."

Dani opened the menu, but her eyes never left the brunette's face. "Are you always this nice to everybody?" she blurted out, almost wishing she could snatch the words back as soon as they left her lips.

Thankfully, the vivacious woman didn't seem to take offense. "I always try to have a good attitude," she replied calmly. "It helps me appreciate the good days more and worry about the bad days less." She patted the wooden bar top once. "I'll be back in a minute to get your order," she said, then she was off, moving down the bar to her other customers.

Dani looked at the menu; many of the selections were printed in English or were similar enough to English for her to puzzle most of them out with her limited Norwegian. As she reviewed the menu, her stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her that she hadn't eaten anything substantial for nearly twenty-four hours, a small bag of salt and vinegar potato chips on the flight across the Atlantic her only meal over that time.

Once she decided on a simple lunch of hamburger and fries, comfort food that she definitely needed after this morning, she swiveled around in her seat to look over the busy pub. She lifted her camera and began taking some pictures of various people laughing, talking, acting entirely normal. They were dressed warmly, in modern clothes that would be fashionable in New York or Rome or London, but there was something about the scene that was off in some way. How could they seem so happy and normal and calm when it was snowing so fucking much that the roads in and out of the town _might be closed for two or three week—_

She closed her eyes and mentally calmed herself down. She was here, she was warm, she was about to eat a hot lunch, and she had a place to stay.

She blinked. Did she have to pay? She hadn't even talked to Tove about paying rent while she was staying here. Was she going to have to wait tables? Was it _ever_ going to stop snowing? And why the _fuck_ did so many people here have coppery red hair pulled back in twin braids, or platinum blonde hair done in a long single braid?

Dani blinked twice. She then carefully, slowly looked around the pub, leaving her camera on the table but with her arm threaded through the strap.

She hadn't hallucinated. Almost everyone in the pub, regardless of age, had either red hair with two thin coppery braids trailing down over her—or his—shoulders, or they had platinum blonde hair with a wide single braid of pale hair cascading over one shoulder or straight down the back.

As she inspected the crowd, she slowly realized that most, if not all, of the braids were fake, either attached to caps or hats or outright wigs. There were a few people, mostly women, who had red or blonde hair a different shade than the dominant copper or platinum most of the pub's customer were sporting, but those women too had their hair pulled back into the same style, a wide single braid for blondes or two thinner braids for the redheads.

Dani looked back at the poster on the wall by the pub's main window again. Sure enough, the two women on the poster had exactly the same hair: the redhead's hair was threaded neatly into two thin, long braids that fell on both shoulders, while the platinum blonde had her hair in a single braid that fell over her right shoulder, the side opposite from where the redhead was tucked against her body.

She wasn't sure how long she spent contemplating the surreal scene. The arrival of her lunch, heralded by a savory smell of freshly cooked hamburger that made her mouth water, jolted her back to the rest of the world. "Oh my God, that smells _so_ good!" she said hurriedly.

Tove grinned as she set the white plate loaded with food in front of Dani, golden fries surrounding the hamburger. "I wasn't sure what you wanted on your burger, so I brought you a bit of everything," she said as she placed a small tray with various bottles as well as a small plate of sliced tomatoes, lettuce, pickles and onions next to the plate of food.

"Thank you so, so much!" Dani mumbled around a bite of of a fry, the crisp outside giving way to a fluffy, delicious but extremely hot center. "Hot," she awkwardly said, her mouth open.

Tove quickly shoved a mug of cold water into her left hand, which Dani immediately gulped from. "Spring water, from up in the mountain," the Arendellan woman said with a proud smile. "Better than anything you'll ever taste anywhere else."

After draining half the glass to cool her scalded tongue, Dani took another, slower, drink. "God, that _is_ good," she said after finishing, with just a tiny amount of water left in the glass.

"Things just taste better here," said Tove, a hint of mischief in her light blue eyes.

"Is that part of the charm?" asked Dani, unable to keep from liking the affable woman she had just met a few hours ago, whom she was going to be staying with for the next few days.

"Part of it," Tove agreed. She picked up Dani's nearly-empty glass. "I'll get you some more."

"Hey," Dani said softly, stopping the other woman before she could finish turning around. "What's with the wigs and hair everybody's wearing?" she asked, hoping she wasn't breaking some taboo by mentioning the surreal yet obvious.

Tove smiled even wider. "It's the Festival of Love," she said simply, before she turned around and walked back to the kitchen, her stride light and energetic in her dark jeans.

—O—

"So you celebrate this festival for a whole month?"

"That's right."

Dani looked around, her eyes dancing across the sights laid out before the two of them where they sat, nestled beneath the shelter of a covered bench a block away from Tove's pub, which Dani had learned was called the Two Queens. In addition to her long coat, a thick blanket was wrapped around her body, from the woolen cap on her head to her waterproof boots; Tove was similarly dressed for the weather, but she seemed content to sit beside Dani on the sturdy wooden bench without a blanket.

The winds had calmed considerably, and as a result, the snowfall had become more serene and peaceful, despite it continuing unabated. The snow's accumulation was now approaching a full meter, and Dani hadn't seen a motorized vehicle on the covered roads since she had arrived at the pub this morning.

"Who are the two women?" asked Dani, her journalist's curiosity evident in her tone. "You know. The blonde and the redhead. The ones whose hair everyone seems to be wearing."

Tove laughed softly, and the sound of the honest amusement made Dani smile. "Their names are Anna—the redhead, as you call her—and Elsa, the blonde." She turned to look at Dani, holding the American woman's green eyes for a few seconds until Tove's smile made Dani smile lightly herself. "They're the goddesses of love."

"They're _goddesses_?!" Dani replied, a bit more sharply than she meant to seem.

Tove nodded.

"Like _Norse_ goddesses? From myths and legends?"

Another nod for a reply, although Tove's smile seemed to dim slightly.

Dani thought for a minute. "I don't remember ever hearing about them," she admitted. "I don't even remember there _being_ a Norse goddess of love." In the comforting embrace of the thick blanket, she reached into her coat pocket and retrieved her Galaxy 5 phone.

"No signal," she muttered at the unwelcome icon at the top of her screen.

"Service tends to go out during the bad storms here," Tove offered softly. "The mountains and the weather are beautiful, but they don't make for very good reception."

The sound of snow crunching under multiple boots made Dani look up. A group of children roughly nine or ten years old trudged through the snow, being led by a stunningly beautiful young blonde woman wearing a bright red coat, most likely a schoolteacher taking her class somewhere, despite the weather. As the class of roughly twenty boys and girls slowly passed by, Dani took stock of how many of them wore either a single blonde braid or twin red braids dangling over their coats. She counted eight "Elsas" and seven "Annas," with both boys and girls seemingly equally happy to dress the part, so to speak. She took one last glance at the class's teacher, noting that even her own hair had been weaved into an intricate single braid dangling over her lowered hood and down the back of her coat.

"Even the kids?" Dani asked, bewildered.

Tove nodded. "The Festival of Love is one of our oldest traditions, and one of our happiest." She took a sip of the coffee from the tumbler she had filled before they left the pub to take a walk. "For children, it teaches them that love is the highest calling of all, something to be cherished, respected and never taken for granted, mocked or abused." She paused for a moment, taking in the dance of snowflakes through the afternoon light, already fading in preparation for the nearing sunset. "For teenagers and young adults, it's a time for expressing feelings to someone who is special to them, without the usual risk of embarrassment or brutal rejection. Being asked out during the Festival is a true honor, and it requires someone to carefully weigh the feelings in her or his heart, to seriously consider the person expressing romantic interest in her or him from all aspects, because not all true loves start out as obvious ones. Sometimes it requires two people taking a chance on each other."

Dani snorted lightly. "Yeah, well, I'm not a good one to try and sell 'love' to," she said flatly. "Having your life savings stolen by the man who said he loved you and stabbed in the back by your former best friend tends to kill the concept of love."

Even through the shroud of her blanket and her thick coat's sleeve, Dani could feel Tove's hand, fingers covered by her blue mitten, gently squeeze her left arm.

"I am very sorry," Tove said, her face taut with concern that didn't look the least bit forced. "Being betrayed like that is terrible in any setting, but for it to be by for someone who says s— _he_ loves you is unforgivable."

Dani nodded, unable to tear her eyes away from Tove's worried face. _I just met you,_ she thought. _How can you genuinely be so concerned about my well-being?_

Tove looked across the street, over the buildings to the surrounding mountains that ringed the small town. They shone even in the weak light allowed by the thick clouds, their white sheen pristine in its intensity. "The Festival of Love gives us the opportunity to reveal our feelings for those we care about, without fear of humiliation or resentment. If someone is not interested, then after taking the time to carefully consider the other person's feelings, she or he would then respectfully decline the offer of pursuing a romantic relationship."

"And it doesn't screw their friendship?" Dani winced. "Or _not_ screw?" She swore to herself and shook her head slightly, aware of Tove giggling softly beside her. "Oh, whatever. You get what I mean."

Tove nodded, still laughing slightly. "Yes, I get your point. No, declining someone's romantic interest must be respected just as much as offering that interest to begin with, especially during the Festival. It takes great courage to reveal feelings for a friend or acquaintance, and a friendship should never be lost over feelings that are only meant to be positive."

"Well, that's just disturbingly progressive," Dani muttered.

"That's the way it's been in Arendelle for hundreds of years," Tove replied. "Ever since Elsa's and Anna's reign."

Dani blinked her eyes a few times. "Their reign?" she asked, confused again. "But I thought you said they were goddesses."

"They are, but they were Queens of Arendelle first." Tove's expression was playful, her smile quirky, but her eyes told Dani the Arendellan woman wasn't just teasing her.

"They actually ruled the country?" Dani blinked to remove a flake of snow that had just landed on her eyelashes. "They were real people?"

Tove nodded. "They're regarded as the greatest rulers Arendelle ever had. Their descendants still reign today. Queen Marte can trace her family line back nearly a millennium."

"Good God," Dani whispered. "That's... pretty impressive." She looked up into Tove's blue eyes. "I got bored with those ancestry sites by the time I hit my great-grandmother."

The two women looked at each other for a few seconds before Dani's composure dissolved into sputtering laughter, followed quickly by Tove breaking into laughter as well.

—O—

The sun had set several hours ago, but Dani still was wide awake, the combination of time change and her growing appreciation of this country as well as her present company keeping her energized.

As she watched Tove, Astrid and several other servers she hadn't met yet work the tables of the pub, she couldn't help but smile. This day had started out a complete disaster, an utter clusterfuck, but now she was...

She was actually enjoying herself.

The realization nearly made her spill her glass of water. (Seriously, water? After a day like today she should have been well into her third mojito, or maybe just some straight vodka. But the water here was _so damn good!)_ She sighed as she decided to just give in to the absurdity of it all.

She flicked on the display on her Nikon, scrolling through the last few pictures she had taken in reverse order. Tove, smiling despite busting her ass all day in the pub. Tove, filling beers for a group of university-age young men and women. Astrid, looking directly into the camera with a look of annoyance mixed with irritation. Karla, her curly-haired driver from this morning who had shown back up at the Two Queens this evening, looking off to the side and trying not to act like she was checking out Astrid's rear—which she totally was—while Astrid was leaning over a table cleaning it. Tove, pointing at something she apparently found quite amusing. A picture of the snow continuing to fall outside, illuminated by the dim glow of the streetlights. A group of men and women, all wearing wigs or hats with twin red braids or a single blonde braid, posing in various embraces or implied kisses in front of a large picture of Elsa and Anna.

Dani switched the display on her camera off again, replacing the device in the carrying case on the table in front of her. She looked around the pub again, now beginning to empty out as the hour grew late.

"What time is last call?" she asked, raising her voice to get Tove's attention where the brunette cleaned glasses behind the bar.

Tove smiled as she looked up. "Whenever I say it is," she replied cheekily. "One of the privileges of owning the pub."

Without even meaning to, Dani suddenly yawned, letting her arms lift toward the low ceiling as she stretched. "Think I'm going to get ready for bed," she said as soon as her muscles relaxed enough to allow her to speak again. She gathered her camera and bag, then stood and carried the water glass to the bar, stopping as Tove drew near, the same happy smile on the woman's face that always seemed to be there.

"Thank you again," Dani said sincerely. "For letting me stay here." She looked around the pub. "This may sound crazy, but I've actually had a really fun time today."

"Even with being stranded in the mountains with a crazy woman like me," Tove said confidently.

Dani smiled in reply, something she had done more today than she had for the last three months. "Even with that."

Tove took the water glass from Dani's hand, placing it on the shelf below the bar surface to be washed later; she then lightly covered Dani's hand with her own for a brief moment before jerking it away. "Sorry!" she said quickly, grimacing awkwardly. "Not everybody likes to be touched, and I have to keep reminding myself of that."

Dani kept the smile on her face. "It's okay," she said softly. "You have to be who you are, huh?"

"Yes," replied Tove, her smile once again back in place. "Go on up. I'll try not to wake you up when I finish up down here."

Dani nodded, then made her way to the door leading upstairs.

—O—

Despite her best efforts, which included taking two diphenhydramine capsules from her travel kit, sleep refused to come for Dani. She lay in the small but comfortable bed for nearly thirty minutes before she finally slid the covers back and sat up. She picked up the small LED travel light she had placed beside her bed and clicked it on, the blue-tinged light casting a soft but adequate glow through the room.

As she stepped out into the narrow hallway, a dim flickering of light from the larger living room drew her attention. Nervously, Dani crept toward the apartment's main room, switching off her light and moving as silently as possible. She peered around the corner to see a low fire, casting a warm orange glow across the otherwise-dark room despite the diminutive height of the flames.

The lack of a protective screen in front of the fireplace immediately surged to the front of Dani's mind, and she was already several swift steps into the living room when she heard the distinctive sound of someone sniffling in front of her.

From her previous position, Dani had been facing the rear of the large couch in the room, and it being silhouetted by the firelight had kept her from recognized the outline of part of a head lying on one of the couch's armrests. But when she heard the noise indicating someone else was in the living room, her eyes reassessed the couch and its now-visible occupant at the same time her heart rate erupted.

"Oh my GOD!" Dani gasped, nearly dropping her light as she took in the sight of Tove lying on the couch, now wearing a long t-shirt and satin shorts. The glistening trails of tears down the woman's cheeks reflected the fire's light. "You scared the _shit_ out of me!" she said loudly as she reached to her neck to check her heart rate, confirming that it was indeed racing wildly.

"Sorry," Tove replied weakly, sniffling and wiping her nose with a tissue from the box beside her. "I was trying to be quiet and not wake you up."

"New York time," Dani said with a weak smile that she quickly realized was lost on Tove, whose attention was once again fixated on the small fire. "Sorry for yelling like that," she added as she sank into the chair beside the sofa, the soft fabric smooth on her bare legs where her sleeping shorts ended. "It _is_ your home, I mean."

Tove nodded, oddly pensive and, for the first time since Dani had met her, utterly still.

For several minutes the two women were quiet, both watching the flames dance around and between the logs in the fireplace, a fatal but intimate embrace. The silence stretched from awkward into uncomfortable before finally passing into an uneasy calm as the two of them just sat quietly.

"It's warmer in here," Tove finally said, her soft voice breaking the silence like a foot carefully dipping into a still pool. "My bedroom gets cold," she said quietly, her voice trailing off in a way that told Dani's instincts that there was more being left unsaid.

Suddenly Tove looked up, her face grimacing with embarrassment. "That was _not_ a proposition!" she said vigorously, the force of her pronouncement surprisingly. "Oh gods, now you're going to think I had some ulterior motive for inviting you to stay here!"

Admittedly, Dani's first reaction to Tove's somewhat cryptic comment _had_ been to worry if the sweet woman was going to make an uncomfortable advance toward her, especially given her own precarious situation at being stranded in a foreign country with no other obvious place to stay. But seeing how contrite Tove was about the awkwardness of her statement, combined with the Arendellan woman breaking down into sobs at what truly was an innocuous (if unwise) turn of phrase only served to further Dani's confusion.

"Hey," Dani said, leaning forward, her fingers hovering inches away from Tove's bare feet but hesitating to establish physical contact. "Hey," she tried again, a bit louder, then again before finally reaching out to grab Tove's left foot.

Instantly Tove jumped, pulling her legs back beneath her. Fear flashed through her eyes for a brief moment as she locked eyes with Dani, startling the American woman as well. Then recognition seeped into Tove's face, and her features instantly softened, the trepidation melting away visibly as she slid into a sitting position, wrapping her arms around her legs as she clutched them tightly to her chest on the far side of the couch.

"I... I didn't mean to upset you," Dani stammered, still significantly flummoxed at Tove's reaction to so simple a gesture. "I'm really sorry." She felt her own eyes begin to burn with shame, having seriously upset Tove, who was being incredibly kind and generous by letting her stay here for an indefinite amount of time.

Tove's eyes were closed, but the firelight continued to highlight the tracks of tears down the brunette's cheeks. Though she was crying silently, it was anything but gentle, if the way her body shook were to believed.

After a few seconds' deliberation, Dani gritted her teeth and lifted herself from the chair, moving slowly to the sofa, where she sat as lightly as possible, at the opposite end from Tove. The couch was large enough and Tove was curled into a small enough package that a good three or four feet spanned between them, which Dani hoped would be enough to keep her host from breaking down further.

"Tove..." she started, unsure what to say briefly before deciding to just say what her heart was telling her. "Tove, if there's anything I can do, please let me know," she softly spoke. "I don't know what's going on, or why you're so upset, but you seem like an incredibly kind, good person, and you don't deserve to be hurting like this."

The whisper was so soft that Dani couldn't make out the words, and it took thinking about it for a few seconds to realize that Tove had uttered anything at all. "What... What did you say?" Dani asked finally.

"Didn't realize you heard that," Tove muttered morosely.

"Well, I did. Will you please tell me what you said?"

Tove sighed before looking up into Dani's eyes. "I said, 'Neither do you.'"

Dani was left speechless by Tove's admission, her mind whirling as she relived the gut-wrenching events of the last few months: her boyfriend's repeated infidelity, her best friend's betrayal, the discovery that her bank accounts were cleaned out, the financial quagmire that awaited her when she finally made it home after this blizzard—if she would even _have_ a home to return to, considering her rent check would almost certainly bounce.

"You have walls up, Dani," Tove said, leaning slightly forward on the couch but not relaxing her legs from their protective position between the two of them. "Your pain is obvious, and understandable, but beneath it, there's such a joy for life, for _art_ that is _so_ beautiful. I can already see it, with the way you let yourself go into your photography and the life and beauty you capture in those pictures, when you can let go of those burdens that haunt you and just allow yourself to appreciate the world all around you."

Dani looked around the den, the dark walls roughly illuminated only by the shifting, dancing glow of the fire. "Today, for the first time in a long time," she said slowly, "I was taking pictures because..." She trailed off to wipe her eyes with the heel of her right hand, then shifting into a slightly more comfortable position reclining back again the arm of the sofa. "I was taking pictures because I was moved by the images, by the scenes. Not because it was my job."

She stopped glancing around the room to meet Tove's eyes again, their color now a golden glow in the firelight. "Photography... stopped being fun a while back," she admitted. "It was my job, and because of that it became reduced to just work, a duty I had to fulfill. Throw all the other shit in my life onto it, and I just stopped seeing the joy that I used to find with a camera in my hands."

Dani smiled, and she did nothing to lessen or restrain the expression. "Until I got here," she admitted quietly.

"Arendelle is a special place," Tove said softly. "I left for a while. Moved to America, stayed for a few years. I worked different jobs, saw several states, but I never found any place that felt like home."

"So you came back here."

Tove nodded. "Not all of my memories here are happy ones, but that wasn't Arendelle's fault."

Dani pursed her lips briefly in a look of consideration, then spoke. "You know, I'm not exactly the most thoughtful person, but..." She sighed, realizing how stupid this had to sound. "I'm going to be here a while, then I'll be gone, and I'll most likely never see you and anyone you know ever again..."

"Careful what you say," Tove said, the ghost of a grin crossing her lips. "You don't know what the future holds for you."

"Yeah, well, this one I'm pretty sure of," Dani replied, smiling. "So if you, like, want to _talk_ to somebody about... things..." She lifted her arms and shoulders in a weak shrug. "I'm here. And I'll listen."

Tove shook her head. "Tradition in Arendelle is that the _visitor_ is the one who must tell a story to the host." Registering the emotional barriers that quickly fell into place over Dani's face, Tove smiled sadly. "But you're in no shape to share your story with me, just as I am with you."

Tove leaned forward and gently gripped Dani's left ankle. "Thank you, Danielle Brooks," she said sweetly. "For caring about me, and trying to help."

Dani felt her cheeks flush slightly. "Well, you seem like a really sweet person, and all I've seen you do since I met you is try to make other people happy, serve them really fucking good food and alcohol, and be the personal savior to a stupid American who probably would have frozen to death by now if not for you."

Tove smiled, the warmth of her hand lingering on Dani's bare leg for a few seconds before it was slowly, hesitantly taken away. "While I don't want to talk about myself, I do have a story you might be interested in," she said slowly, leaning back against her end of the sofa in a position mirroring Dani's.

"Oh?" asked Dani, curious. "What kind of story?"

Tove's smile grew as she paused for several seconds before speaking. "The story of how two sisters who experienced terrible loss and tragedy growing up fell in love with each other and went on to become the goddesses of love," she said smugly.

Dani sat up straighter. "You've got my attention."

Tove cleared her throat softly. _"This is the story of Elsa and Anna, who began as sisters but became lovers and eternal mates, two young women who lost nearly everything they loved while still in childhood but in the process found happiness and love with each other. Their love was so powerful that it defied law, nature and even the gods themselves, in tragedy and triumph alike..."_

 **Author's Afterword:** For clarity, the parts of this story that are narrative, with Tove telling the story of Anna and Elsa, will be in italics. I've wanted to write a story with this element in it for some time, and now I've finally managed to get enough of it together. This will be a three-chapter story. The next two chapters will have MUCH more of Elsa's and Anna's story, as well as more examination of how their legend continues to influence this modern Arendelle. The fairy tale that makes up their story is as much a part of my overall story as the modern segments, and weaving the two together to tell both tales at once is the challenge I've set for myself with this work. I hope this comes out well, but it's taken a LOT of time to come up with a way to present this tale that feels smooth enough to post. Please bear with me, both in terms of the story as well as the time, since I seem to be writing very slowly for the last few months.

Jo


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** Now we get into the meat of the fairy tale itself. I'm so looking forward to this! Please do note that the narrative skips parts of the fairy tale. The basic sense is that Tove tells Dani part of the story each night, so where the story skips a few days, that part of the fairy tale is skipped in the narrative as well. So if it feels like you're missing pieces of the story, you sort of are, although most of what's going to be skipped is essentially the movie Frozen itself, as should be obvious in the story. This also takes advantage of the flexibility of fairy tales; they can be altered, amended, edited and even rewritten outright, but they still tell a story that manages to convey the same basic theme (usually).

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Frozen or any of the Disney characters held within. All of them are being used under Fair Use, and I have not and will not make any profit from this story.

 **An Elsanna Fairy Tale**

Chapter 2: Turn

by Jo K.

 _I'm not in love, I'm not in love_

 _I'm not in love, I'm not in love_

 _I'm magnetized by you_

-Garbage, "Magnetized"

—O—

 _...And so Princess Anna was left with a terrible choice: run to Kristoff, who represented her best hope at True Love's Kiss and saving her own life, or run to Elsa and try to stop Hans from killing her dear sister._

 _For Anna, it was never a choice at all._

 _Without hesitation, she looked away from Kristoff's approaching form and ran toward Elsa and Hans. Her legs were now completely numb, causing her to stumble awkwardly, but she somehow managed to keep from falling in her frantic charge toward her sister. She gritted her teeth against the spreading ache in her bones, the biting numbness moving up her face, as she watched the treacherous prince raise his sword for the killing blow as Elsa knelt before him, sobbing as she patiently offered herself up as a sacrifice to save Arendelle and Anna both._

 _As Hans' right arm began to sweep downward, Anna accepted her own death. She had always been willing to do anything to protect Elsa, and she would not,_ could not _fail her now. As blackness oozed in around her vision, she pushed her arm upward, hand raised in an attempt to deflect the sword from striking Elsa._

 _The last thing Anna saw as the cold darkness claimed her was the look of shock on the formerly smug prince's face as his sword's blade met Anna's now-crystalline hand and shattered, its finely forged blade worthless in the face of utter, complete love._

 _True Love._

—O—

Dani wiped the sweat from her forehead as she settled the tray full of empty glasses on the back counter of the bar. She had been stuck in Arendelle for seven days, and she had honestly loved every minute.

She smiled as she heard Astrid coolly rebuff the advances of a group of university-age boys, the uproarious laughter in response to whatever she had told the most persistent of the group making Dani nearly laugh herself. She wasn't entirely sure if Astrid had any emotions other than annoyed and irritated, but the girl was ridiculously efficient as a server, handling nearly the entire pub by herself most of the time. And watching her shoot down the ongoing flirtations of men and women alike was practically a spectator sport by now, as far as Dani was concerned.

"Does she know it's the Festival of Love?" Dani quietly asked Tove as Astrid glided by them into the kitchen, the wooden door and its porthole window swinging closed behind the young server and the icy look on her face..

Tove laughed once, having instantly grasping Dani's meaning. "Oh, I assure you, she _is_ being gentle with them!" Tove said, her own voice low as she replied. "You haven't seen her really mad yet. But... I'm pretty sure she's serious about someone."

"Really?" Dani answered, her eyebrows rising at the idea. "I hope she's nicer at home." She quickly covered her mouth after blurting that out, but when she met Tove's gaze, she saw mirth reflected back in the Arendellan woman's blue eyes.

"Astrid is actually quite sweet when she's not working," said Tove. "She's very quiet and keeps to herself fiercely, but every time she goes on break, she goes back in my office and uses the landline phone to call someone."

"And you don't listen in?!" Dani asked, a bit too loudly for Tove, who immediately began shushed her while trying not to laugh. "Come on, T," Dani teased. "This is one of your girls! You need to pry a little bit, make sure she's being treated right."

Rather than reply immediately, Tove just smiled as she looked into Dani's eyes. Finally she said softly, "I like it when you call me that," actually blushing slightly as she spoke.

"What? 'T'?"

Tove nodded. "It's not just the way you say it. It's... the feeling you put behind it."

Now it was Dani's turn to experience the flushing sensation surging through her cheeks. She shifted a bit uncomfortably in her chair, only for her eyes to settle on a poster of none other than Anna and Elsa, hanging on the wall behind the bar. This time they were facing each other, in the process of kissing, captured just as their lips began to touch. Elsa was wearing a glittering turquoise evening gown, while Anna had on a more traditional outfit of a long navy skirt, a light blue shirt and a pink jacket. Elsa's feet were in glassy slippers that would have looked perfectly in place on Cinderella's feet, and Anna's feet were encased in black leather boots, her right foot delicately lifted up into the air as she balanced on the tiptoes of her left foot to reach Elsa's lips with her own.

Dani swallowed, trying to compose her thoughts as she considered the Festival of Love, the story of Anna and Elsa that Tove had been telling her over the last week, her own growing affection and enjoyment of the upbeat Arendellan woman, and the uncanny ease with which she had adjusted to being stranded in a foreign country.

Finally she looked up. There she met Tove's crystal-blue eyes, searching, wary, eager but hesitant.

Optimistic... but afraid.

Dani wanted to be honest, despite how much the thought of it—and what it meant—terrified her inside. "I..." she began hesitantly, before her trepidation, strengthened by the bitterness and heartache of the last few months, won out. "I mean, i-it's easy," she stammered. "To call you that." She smiled, and that part was genuine. "I like how it sounds. And how much you enjoy it."

The bang of the kitchen door swinging open, followed by Astrid walking back into the main part of the pub, made both Dani and Tove jump slightly. Astrid's cool look that was directed at Dani didn't go unnoticed, although the American waited until the server was all the way across the pub handing out dishes of food before she dared to whisper to Tove, "I really don't think she likes me."

Only a soft giggle from behind the bar could be heard in reply.

—O—

 _The next month was a difficult one for Arendelle, after their Queen and Princess publicly declared their love for each other. The fact that the two sisters had also married themselves, making Anna Queen as well, further inflamed sensibilities. Until war came to Arendelle._

 _Two neighboring countries had decided to take advantage of the unrest and confusion in Arendelle, with a secret plan to split the resources of the country and its people once its rulers were deposed and, hopefully, executed._

 _However, those two countries failed to take into account several facts, of which the two most important were, as one would expect, Queen Elsa and Queen Anna themselves._

 _The two Queens personally took to the battlefields, together leading Arendelle's army against a massive force, superior in numbers, skill and experience. But the combination of Arendelle's harsh terrain and lethal weather, Elsa's intelligence and magical powers, Anna's charisma and surprising knowledge of military tactics (for she had spent much of those years sequestered away from her sister reading all she could on topics that interested her, and the thought of leading an army to free her sweet Elsa from unjust imprisonment was never far from Anna's mind), and the courage and spirit of Arendelle's people saw the tiny nation victorious after three painful weeks of fighting._

 _Arendelle had won the right to exist, and its Queens had led the country to victory during the most perilous time in their nation's history. After securing not only peace but also reparations for the harm inflicted on their citizens, the Sister-Queens of Arendelle were hailed as heroes. However, there was much more yet to do._

 _Over the next year, the two monarchs personally helped with the rebuilding of Arendelle. While Elsa's ice wasn't ideal for making homes, it proved to be incredibly effective as bridges, dams, city walls and other structures. It also was a ready source of fresh water, and as ice it remained ideal for preserving food during the warmer months of the year. Anna seemed tireless in her work helping with building houses and hunting, and Elsa was always present to help with planning, designing and coordinating people's efforts to achieve the best possible results. The two proved extremely capable at administering the country even while facilitating Arendelle's rebuilding, and before long nearly every town and village in Arendelle had witnessed their two Queens laboring beside their own residents, eating the same food (often due to Anna's skill with a bow and arrow), drinking the same water (not infrequently due to Elsa's magic), singing the same songs and getting the same blisters, cuts and scrapes as each of their subjects._

 _Also well-noted by the citizens of Arendelle was the deep, intense love between the two women. There was no mistaking the devotion, the adoration between the two, conveyed effortlessly in each look, each touch, each embrace and each kiss. Every Arendellan who had ever been in love could see the unmistakeable truth before their eyes—its queens, despite being born to the same parents, were well and truly in love with each other._

 _Full acceptance from the populace took time, but it came, and quicker than most expected. The young princesses of Arendelle had been the pride and joy of the entire country their whole lives, and their sudden disappearance from official events had only fueled the fires of interest and the fiercely protective natures of Arendelle's citizens. And for those last few stubborn souls who yet hesitated to sanction their marital relationship, there was the weighty matter of True Love, in the form of a miracle that stopped the Eternal Winter, defied death itself and was witnessed by thousands._

 _Despite their unorthodox relationship with each other, Elsa and Anna proved themselves to be not only compassionate Queens, but extremely capable ones as well. When their first daughter was born—_

—O—

"Hold up."

Tove sighed as she turned to look at Dani, facing her as they sat on opposite ends of the couch, their legs tangled together in the middle and Dani's bare toes dangerously within tickling range. "Yes?" she said, perhaps slightly accentuating the note of irritation in her reply.

"You said first daughter."

Tove blinked as she held the American's gaze. "Yes, that's right. They had five daughters eventually."

"How did they get pregnant?"

Tove's expression remained stony. "Queen Elsa's magic," she huffed. "Have you not been listening, Dani?"

"Hey, you said she could control ice, snow and cold. You didn't say anything about her being able to knock people up."

"It wasn't only Anna who got pregnant. Elsa carried two of their daughters herself."

Dani shook her head energetically. "Wait wait wait!" She couldn't help the slight smirk that crossed her lips as she spoke. "So you're trying to tell me that two women could get each other pregnant, and that it was because of 'magic'?" she said sarcastically.

"I don't think I like your tone of voice."

"Come on, Tove! Of _course_ there was some guy who was doing the deed of getting them pregnant! If they really loved each other as much as the story says, then maybe they weren't cheating on each other, but there _still_ had to be some man involved for one of them to get pregnant!"

Tove's blue eyes narrowed ominously in the low light of the fire across from them. "There. Was. No. MAN."

Her growling voice made Dani shiver once, easily detectable from the close contact between their lower bodies beneath the blanket covering them. "Okay," Dani hissed. "Jesus."

"With Jesus most Americans tend to be more accepting of pregnancy without a man," Tove replied, her voice cool.

Dani opened her mouth to snap another retort, but when she saw the firelight reflecting wetly off unshed tears in Tove's eyes, she felt her heart sink in her chest. "Tove..." she began, reaching out for the woman's left hand only to have it yanked away, where Tove folded her arms across her chest. "Look, I'm sorry, T, okay?" she asked, voice softer. "I'm sorry."

When Tove's watering eyes slid back to look directly at Dani, the American felt her pulse skip briefly before resuming. "Y-you don't believe in them," Tove asked, her voice breaking. "Do you?"

" _You_ believe in them," Dani said, offering a smile that she hoped looked more confident than she was really feeling. "And that's enough." When there was no reply from the brunette, only her continued hurt gaze, Dani threw her hands up into the air. "Jesus, Tove, I don't even believe in _God!_ "

Silence weighed heavy on the cozy room, punctuated only by snaps and pops of the fire until a soft voice drifted through the late night darkness.

"I've seen them."

Dani looked back up from the back of the couch she had been studying. "What?"

Tove blinked before answering, "I said, I've seen them."

"Who?"

"Anna and Elsa."

"Well, we've been seeing them about a thousand times a day for the last week, T, you know?"

Tove shook her head. "I don't know why I'm even telling you this," she muttered before raising her voice back to conversational tones again. "I haven't told this to anyone, not even my parents before they died. But I saw them one night, when I was fourteen. I had just been dumped by my boyfriend, it was one week before the Festival of Love, and I was heartbroken. I had cried myself to sleep that night, wishing that I would just die in my sleep so I wouldn't have to wake up and live with the pain."

"Yeah, teenage years sucked," Dani said, nodding in acknowledgment. "Remember those days myself."

The briefest smile flashed across Tove's face, but her reaching up to wipe tears away removed the hint of a smile as well. "While I was asleep, I heard voices in my room. I opened my eyes, and Anna and Elsa were standing next to my window. I knew it was them because of their hair, and the way they held each other's hands. It had started snowing during the night, and I could see the snow falling through the window beside them. I asked them why love hurt so badly. They both smiled at me, then Anna told me that it's not love that hurts us; it's us who hurt each other. And Elsa told me that one day I would meet my True Love, and that while I might not recognize her at first, if I stayed true to love and true to myself, we'd find each other."

Dani scrutinized Tove's face, looking for a twitch, a smirk, any sign of teasing or mirth, but the brunette was entirely serious. "So they specifically told you that your True Love would be a woman?"

Tove smiled weakly. "They did."

"And so you, what, stopped dating boys and started dating girls?"

Tove nodded. "Found out I liked girls better anyway, which was a nice surprise."

"But you've never found your True Love yet." It was clearly a statement, not a question.

Tove shook her head. "No. I thought..." She shook her head again, then looked back up to Dani. "No," she finally said, the ring of finality in the single word. "Can we get back to the story, please?"

—O—

 _After the birth of Sanne, their first daughter, Anna and Elsa were overjoyed. Their happiness was perhaps surpassed by that of the people of Arendelle, who accepted the magical conception as simply more proof of the True Love between the two queens. Sanne looked almost identical to her mother Anna, but she manifested the same powers as her mother Elsa when she was very small. This quelled the last lingering doubts about Elsa being Sanne's "father," and when Anna became pregnant again the next year, there were no furtive whispers or seedy speculation about the baby's father, only a happy acceptance that the union between their two monarchs was truly blessed._

 _But despite all the happiness and the many great things Anna and Elsa would accomplish over the sixty years they reigned over Arendelle, there was a tragedy patiently waiting to happen._

 _It was not an act of maliciousness or spite, nor was it the action of anyone opposed to the two Queens of Arendelle or their family. Anna's and Elsa's daughters grew up healthy and happy, with three of them marrying princes and a princess from other countries and two remaining in Arendelle to help with governing the country and to prepare for the day when one of them would succeed their mothers. There was no scandal borne of lust or forbidden love, no act of unfaithfulness or adultery; in fact, Arendelle's monarchs remained steadfastly devoted and faithful to each other regardless of temptation._

 _No, the tragedy that awaited the country of Arendelle and its beloved royal family was at once more simple yet more unyielding._

 _For while Elsa possessed the powers of a god and the supernaturally long life that came with those powers, Anna did not._

—O—

As they watched the brilliant sheets of green and yellow shift and dance across the star-speckled night sky, Dani leaned more tightly into Tove. The campfire in front of them blew in the light mountain wind, and before long they would have to retire into the tent and the heater inside it, but for now, the two women huddled against each other, a large sleeping bag pulled around their legs and waist and a thick blanket draped over their upper bodies as protection against the biting cold of the winter night.

"This is so beautiful..." Dani whispered, enthralled by the magnificent luminous display writ large across the night sky. It was well past midnight, and as her eyes swept over the landscape around her, the snow-covered ground washed luminous green from the stunning display above them, she felt her heart racing with excitement.

She had already taken multiple pictures of the tableau before them as well as the aurora borealis above them, and now her backup N80 camera, older but still reliable, had been safely stored in its protective bag back inside their large tent. Now it was time for simple appreciation of the remarkable sight... as well as appreciation of her friend who had talked her into this trip.

"I still can't believe I'm doing this," Dani said, smiling as she shook her head. "Camping out on top of a huge mountain..."

"It's not _that_ big a mountain," Tove interjected playfully.

"...In the middle of winter, in a country I had never heard of until just over a week ago..."

"With a strange woman who might or might not be crazy..."

Dani turned to see Tove looking at her warmly, her seemingly ever-present smile firmly in place. "Okay," Tove said softly, "it kind of _is_ a big mountain. But we're not that far up."

"Still not sure how the pub's going to survive without you there tomorrow."

"I can afford to take a day off occasionally. Things run smoothly enough that everyone can handle me being gone for that amount of time."

"As long as Astrid doesn't kill anyone."

The two of them both laughed, which somehow devolved into nonsensical giggling, followed by sputtering and more laughing until the two women were both gasping for air, their sides hurting and throats burning from deeply breathing in lungfuls of the cold air. As they looked at each other, both faces slightly rosy from the chill as well as the giggle fit, Dani smiled at Tove, who beamed in return.

"Does this mountain have a name?" Dani finally asked, her voice startlingly husky, after several seconds of looking into Tove's light blue eyes.

Tove's smile turned into a full-blown grin, teeth showing in the fire's light. "Elsanna Mountain," she said.

"You're shitting me."

"No, I swear!" replied Tove, fighting back laughter. "One of their children or grandchildren named it after them hundreds of years ago!"

Dani kept staring at Tove, unsure if the woman was teasing her or telling the truth. Her indecision finally made Tove break her silence.

"It really is named after them," the Arendellan woman said softly, her smile still present and radiating its customary warmth despite the winter's chill. "You can check the maps or the internet when we get back to town." She waited a few seconds, then added, "This is where they were married, on top of this mountain." She pointed behind them further up the steep slope, where the jagged summit seemed to touch the northern lights themselves.

Dani turned to look, once again eying the rest of the mountain far above their campsite which, despite the time and effort it had taken to hike, was less than a quarter of the way up the mountain. "Who married them?" she asked, suddenly unsure of exactly when she had started to entertain the possibility that the story might actually be more than just a local myth.

Tove sighed, her breath frosting into a cloud in front of her lips. She shifted slightly then shivered suddenly; in response, Dani moved a bit closer, putting her left arm around Tove to try and share warmth a bit more effectively. "There are different stories about that part, so I suppose no one really knows," Tove finally said. "Some say the gods married them. Freya is the most popular choice in those stories, as she was the goddess of love at that time, although I have heard versions with Frigga, Odin, Balder, even Skadi performing the ceremony. Others say the trolls married them, or faeries, or the elves of Alfheim. Some stories say that no one married them, that they swore their vows and consecrated their union themselves, through their royal station and their True Love."

"Would that be legal?" asked Dani, still a bit shocked that she was asking a serious question about a freaking _fairy tale_.

Tove nodded. "Elsa _was_ Queen, after all. The authority to legally marry is part of the ruling sovereign's powers."

Dani looked into the fire for several minutes, thinking quietly. Tove sat still, closing her eyes to relish the warmth and the closeness to her friend.

She was falling hard, and fast. And she knew it.

She didn't want it. She hadn't wanted it, hadn't even dared to _dream_ of love again, not after the pain that word had brought to her. Not after the insults that cut like knives, the screamed threats and controlling behavior. Not after the slaps that became punches, or the burns placed where no one else could see them. Not after the threats of suicide, the forced isolation, the attempts at appeasement made increasingly in vain. Not after her own psyche and self-worth had been left in tatters, beaten and bloody and broken even more than her physical body.

It had taken time to heal. Years. And she had carefully avoided any potential relationships since then. She now knew that what she had been through had not been love, not in the slightest, but that was the word she and her ex-partner had used, first like foolish children and finally like desperate prisoners. That was the love she had intellectually respected and longingly worshiped, but she had carefully avoided ever being put in so vulnerable a situation again.

Until now. Until this year's Festival, when a flustered, frightened, lonely, lovely, sweet, sad, gentle, thoughtful blonde American had been blown into her pub and her life by a blizzard that might as well have been sent by Elsa and Anna themselves.

The light intake of breath beside her made Tove's eyes snap open. She saw Dani still watching the fire intently, her lips slightly parted as her throat gently worked beneath her visible skin.

"Do you think..." began Dani, shuddering slightly with a movement that was palpable to Tove through their bodily contact. "Do you think they were scared?"

"Terrified," Tove whispered immediately.

Dani turned to look at Tove, her pupils pinpoint from staring at the fire for so long. Her irises looked like molten gold in the ruddy firelight, only inches apart from Tove's own. Their lips and noses were so close that each could feel the warmth and faint moisture of the other's breath with every exhalation, and the proximity seemed to be under such tension that the thin layer of air between their faces practically vibrated.

Tove searched Dani's eyes, seeing many emotions at war in those depths; finally making her decision, she slowly closed her eyes, continuing to watch Dani's expression as she leaned forward those few millimeters until her lids shut out the rest of the world.

Their lips touched, softly, reverently. Where before they had shared warmth, this was heat. This was electricity and anxiety and tenderness and hope all at once. When Dani kissed back, Tove felt her heart shoot upward into her throat. She continued to press her lips against Dani's for several seconds before she parted her lips slightly to let her tongue tentatively flick against Dani's lips. When those lips parted and Dani's tongue hesitantly slid against Tove's, both women shuddered.

When she felt Dani pull back slightly, Tove didn't pursue her. She was too numb to move. Her eyes did manage to heavily open, revealing a look of surprise on Dani's face, although the American didn't appear to be disgusted or upset about their actions.

"Oh God," Dani mumbled, her look of mild shock giving way to a smile. "Jesus. That was... That was the best kiss I've ever had."

As she watched Dani lick her lips, Tove couldn't help but smile more. Dani's arm was still around her, and now Tove slid her own arms around the American's waist. But as emotions began to skip and dance across Dani's face, Tove felt the cold dread of fear begin to sink its teeth into her heart.

"Tove, you've been wonderful to me," Dani said. "And this has been probably the best—" She shook her head, then looked back up to meet Tove's now-worried gaze. "No, screw it, this _has_ been the best date I've ever been on. No contest."

Tove closed her eyes, but not soon enough to catch the tears spilling over. "But..." she said, her voice breaking as she felt her heart pounding.

The feel on Dani's cool fingertips, bare against her left cheek, startled Tove enough to make her eyes blink open, revealing Dani's own eyes were red and brimming with tears as well. She smiled, but there was enough sadness in that smile to make Tove's insides sink like heavy stones.

"I'm not gay," Dani said gently, ignoring the tears now trickling down her cheeks.

Tove closed her eyes again as she felt despair sweep through her. It had been four years since she had thought she would never fall in love again, four years where she had found solace and happiness in the family pub and in herself. She had never dreamed that some foreigner would come blowing into her bar, carve out a place in her scorched heart and refuse to leave, all in just over a week's time.

It had been foolish of her to fall so quickly, so hard. Really, it had been foolish of her to fall in love at all. She didn't deserve it, after all. She only had ever picked the ones who caused her heartache and misery, the ones who treated her the way they all said she deserved, deep down inside. But she had hoped, with Dani arriving in conjunction with the festival, that maybe the words she had heard as a heartbroken teenager really _would_ come true.

But that was a foolish hope.

She really should have known better.

"Tove."

Her name was spoken so softly, so tenderly, almost religiously, that she opened her eyes despite them burning. She saw Dani, her own face a wreck with tears, blotchy redness, quivering lower lip and chin, and the sight made Tove realize what a terrible position she had just thrust Dani into with that kiss. "I'm sorry," Tove whispered painfully.

"For what?"

The reply was just as gentle as Dani's inquiry, almost soothing with its softness. "For kissing you. For putting you in this situation. For this date—because that's exactly what I wanted it to be, you were right—and bringing you up here hoping that you would somehow feel the same way about me that I realize I feel about you. I'm a shitty person, for doing this to you when you're forced to stay with me becau—"

Dani pulled Tove to her chest, hugging her as the brunette stopped talked and instead began to cry into her winter coat. "Jesus, Tove. You're _amazing_. If I was gay or bi, I would be _all over you_ right now, do you know that?"

Tove laughed wetly despite being heartsick with sorrow. "I don't know why."

"Because you're sweet, you're smart, you're beautiful, you're loving, you've got a home, you've got a business, and on and on! You are a fantastic woman, Tove, and you're going to make someone the best girlfriend ever."

"I don't think so," Tove said, her voice raspy. "I don't— I don't do so well with... relationships."

Dani pulled back and looked firmly into Tove's bloodshot eyes. "Bullshit," she said firmly.

"What?"

"I said, 'Bullshit.' Whatever you've been through in your relationships, Tove, you are a good, kind, loving person. I might have only known you eight days, but I _know that_. Qualities like that are embedded deep inside you, and they're not going to change that much. Just like abusers and cheaters are always going to be abusers and cheaters."

When Tove weakly tried to pull away, Dani held on tightly.

"Stop trying to pull away, silly."

"But I've ruined our night!" Tove moaned, beginning to melt down. She had wanted this to be a wonderful experience for Dani, no matter what happened, and now she had destroyed it.

"You haven't," Dani said carefully. "You haven't ruined anything, Tove."

Tove sniffled, resisting the urge to wipe her running nose on Dani's coat. "I have," she argued. "I kissed you, when you didn't want to be kissed, and now I've made everything all awk—"

Dani's eyes directly in front of Tove's face made her stop speaking abruptly. "Shhh," Dani said softly, smiling again. "Tove," she said carefully. "The only thing you have done today, and really every day since I got stranded here, is try to make me feel welcomed and cared for." Dani gently wiped the tears from Tove's cheeks with her bare fingers before resuming.

"You've become an incredible friend in a little over a week. You took me in when I needed a place to stay, you fed me when I was hungry, you've shown me around your absolutely beautiful home, you've brought me up here so I could take some amazing pictures of the Northern Lights and hopefully not get fired from my job..."

Dani waited until Tove finally looked back up, meeting her gaze hesitantly. "And you kissed me because you care for me, right?"

Tove was utterly still for several seconds until she jerkily nodded twice.

"How could be I upset about _that_ , Tove?" she asked. "Especially during the Festival of Love?"

"But you... don't feel the same way."

Dani took a moment to compose her words carefully before she replied. "Tove, I don't think of women romantically or sexually. But I do care for you very much. You've already been a better friend to me than anyone I've ever known, and you've expected and asked for nothing in return for all the generosity and kindness you've shown me. I've seen a different world here in Arendelle, and it's been so crazy beautiful that I still catch myself wondering if it's all a dream." She gently reached up and fingered a lock of Tove's dark brown hair that had worked its way out from beneath her hood.

"I will freely admit that I thought about it," Dani admitted. "About trying it, with you. Just now, when you kissed me. You'd be good to me, I know." Tove nodded weakly, tears flowing again. "But you deserve someone who wants you the same way you want them, and even though I think you're an amazing friend, I can't give you that attraction and desire back.

"I want to. God, I want to, because you deserve it. But just like you have to be honest with me, I have to be honest with you. That's what the Festival requires, right? We have to respect each other and consider things carefully, and we have to be careful with each other's feelings."

Tove nodded. "Yes," she managed to whisper finally. "That's what it's about."

"I don't want to hurt you," Dani said, her eyes burning again as she starting crying once more. "And I know I have, because I can't give you back exactly what you feel for me. But I still want to be your friend... if you'll have me as that."

Tove stared at the American dumbly for several seconds as she processed how perfectly Dani had grasped the Festival of Love. There were many more kinds of love than True Love or romantic love, and they could be precious in their own right.

Finally Tove opened her mouth, after a long enough delay that Dani was growing terrified at Tove's potential reaction. "I am honored to have you as my friend," she managed to say, her voice ragged with emotion. "And I'm so glad I didn't lose that friendship with what—"

Dani's fierce hug cut off Tove's remaining self-recriminations. "Never," she whispered against Tove's cheek.

—O—

 _On the day that would forever change their lives, Elsa refused to leave Anna's side the entire day. Despite the coughing and vomiting, despite the blood that at times stained linens and clothes alike, Elsa stayed with Anna as her beloved wife's breathing grew weaker and more irregular. She held her mate of over sixty years, sang softly to her and cried into Anna's white locks as she once again wished she had grown old as Anna had done._

" _I wish I didn't have to leave you," Anna said, her voice so weak that it brought tears to Elsa's eyes. "I love you, Elsa. I will always, always love you."_

" _I'll be lost without you," Elsa whispered through her frosty tears._

" _But you have to carry on, Elsa," Anna said sadly. "I'll wait for you. No matter how long it takes, I'll be waiting for you."_

 _Elsa gasped through her sobbing, unable to keep from smiling at Anna's spirit. "You always were the brave one," Elsa said, placing a kiss on Anna's feverish forehead._

" _And you always were the strong one," Anna replied through her own tears staining her aged face. "Even though you never realized it."_

" _My life with you has been more wonderful than I ever could have dreamed," Elsa said, wanting to tightly squeeze Anna in an embrace but hesitant about hindering her already-weakened breathing._

" _And it will be again," Anna replied quietly, smiling though her fever, her pain, her labored respiration, for she was in her beloved Elsa's arms. "No matter how long it takes."_

 _It was well into the night when Elsa felt Anna release a final weak breath, never to take another. Despite knowing this day would come, the pain of loss struck Elsa with far, far more weight than she could have imagined. By the time one of the nurses came to check on her two Queens, the pillows behind Elsa and the linens beneath the two mates had frozen stiff from her unchecked tears._

 _It took hours to persuade Elsa to release Anna's still body from her desperate embrace._

 _The funeral was held the next day, with a month-long period of mourning declared by Queen Sanne, eldest daughter of Elsa and Anna, who had ascended to the throne several years earlier when Elsa and Anna abdicated to allow their first daughter to take the throne. Elsa stood resolutely as the longboat, decorated more intricately than any ever in the history of Arendelle, sailed into the distance, the funeral pyre fierce and brilliant enough to attract the attention of the gods themselves. Those present at the ceremony watched at the waters beneath the dock where Elsa stood grew glassy and opaque, finally freezing as the blazing boat became a mere speck on the horizon, beneath the majestic plume of smoke that stretched nearly to touch Bifrost itself._

 _Elsa left Arendelle immediately after the funeral. An icy winged horse bore her to the Ice Palace high atop the North Mountain, with the steed dissolving into a shower of flakes and frost as soon as Elsa's feet touched the snowy ground._

 _As she walked to the glittering crystal structure she and Anna had built into a home many years ago, Elsa fell to her knees, overcome with grief. There she sat upon the ground, gently supported by the snow, who longed to do something to comfort its mistress, but nothing could soothe the aching pain in Elsa's heart and soul._

 _As Elsa sat and cried, wracked with despair, the storm around her grew both in size and in strength. Many, many years ago, at the peak of her sorrow and self-loathing, Elsa had created a storm the people of Arendelle had called the Eternal Winter, a storm powerful enough to freeze the fjords, to encase the castle in snow and ice, to drown the country itself in a frigid coat of snow unlike anything ever seen in Arendelle's history. Only the True Love between Elsa and Anna proved mighty enough to break the curse of the relentless storm and save Arendelle from an icy death._

 _But at that time, Anna was still alive, and True Love vanquished Elsa's feelings of fear, hopelessness and despair._

 _This time, Elsa was alone._

—O—

As Dani woke in the warmth of their shared sleeping bag, she noted the small heater in the tent had weakened during the night, but she and Tove were indeed alive and not frozen corpses.

She noted that Tove had snuggled against her during the night, leaving the two of them spooning with Dani behind the smaller Arendellan woman. She smiled as she leaned forward and sniffed Tove's dark hair, enjoying the faint scent of sandalwood.

God, she was confused.

It had taken her over an hour to fall asleep last night. She couldn't get that image out of her head, of Elsa desperately hanging onto Anna's dead body, refusing to let her go. Then that image turned into Tove's crying face, after Dani had rejected her as gently as possible by explaining to Tove that she wasn't attracted to women.

Two weeks ago, that fact was inarguable. But today...

Well, Dani wasn't so sure any more.

She had never been attracted to women, not really. She could appreciate beauty and attractiveness without feeling the pull she felt toward men she liked; most women could, after all. But whether it was close proximity to Tove, the brunette's kind heart and uplifting personality, or just the way she had it all together, well, Dani could no longer deny her heart beginning to respond to _something_ when she thought of Tove now.

It wasn't the adrenaline rush of love, or the deep, gut feeling of sexual attraction. It was emotional, yes, but in a more calm, serene way. It was warmth, it was comfort, it was happiness.

It had been months since she had been happy. _Months_. If she were truly honest with herself, she hadn't been happy with her ex for nearly the last year. Their relationship had already been strained at best; collapsing probably would have been a more honest assessment. But she was busy with work, gone most of the time, then fighting with him when they were both together for that one or two days a month, and while she had good intentions of trying to work on things, of trying to fix their dwindling connection, well...

You know what they say about good intentions.

Ending her relationship had been for the best, she had to admit it. What hadn't been for the best had been the prick and her traitorous "best friend" stealing her blind. They'd eventually be found, but she had little hope of ever getting her money back, and a legal battle to recoup what she had lost would almost certainly cost more than what she had saved to begin with.

So how much worse could being with a woman be?

She was still considering the question and its ramifications when sleepy movement from the woman in her arms seized her attention. She smiled at the thought of another day with her new friend in this place that seemed to be pulled straight from a storybook.

 _Maybe I should buy an Anna or Elsa wig today,_ Dani thought, and the idea of doing such a thing brought a smile to her face.

—O—

 _When the monstrous storm hit Arendelle, it was already nearly twice as powerful as the Eternal Winter of decades past, and it was continuing to grow in size and force. The homes unfortunate enough to be in its path received nearly a meter of snow in mere hours, and despite Arendelle being a hardy nation and thoroughly familiar with the cold and elements, it was quickly apparent this blizzard was unlike anything they could have prepared for._

 _Queen Sanne watched from the upper balcony of Arendelle Castle as the dark gray storm clouds streaked with sickly green billowed down the mountain, moving with such speed that she could watch the body of the storm envelop the land as it surged toward the castle and city surrounding it._

 _With stoic determination, she raised her arms and unleashed her own powers, commanding the storm to stop._

 _But the storm refused._

 _Trying a different approach, she attempted to divert the storm's course, to sweep it away from Arendelle toward the sea, to spend its fury and grief on the vast waves and spare Arendelle from its wrath._

 _And that was when her heart fell. For as she reached out around the storm, she could feel that the storm was_ already _moving out to sea, just as it was moving toward Arendelle, and east toward Ruthenia, and spreading outward in all directions at once, far too powerful for even her magic to halt or redirect._

 _She wasn't as powerful as her mother had been. She knew that. Her mother's magic was fueled by her emotions. Sanne knew that too, just as she knew that Elsa's grief and fear and sorrow had never, ever been so profound as they were at this very moment, reeling from the loss of her heart's True Love._

 _There was no stopping this storm._

 _Grimly, Sanne raised her arms again, channeling more magic than ever before, using her own swelling fear to empower herself beyond her previous limits. As a dome of glittering crystal began to form around the nation of Arendelle, gently inserting itself beneath the storm's fury to encompass the houses closest to the North Mountain and offer them protection as well, Sanne ignored the pounding in her head and her heart as she weaved her desperate hope of protection for Arendelle, a shield to let the storm pass over and around the small country without decimating it._

 _She could only hope that somehow the rest of the world would fare better._

—O—

 _When Elsa felt the terror emanating from Sanne through their faint connection with the cold, she stopped crying long enough to stand and look toward Arendelle._

 _Seeing the enormous storm swallowing the entire country, not just the capital city, plunged even more fear into Elsa's heart. She had lost her Anna; she couldn't lose their daughter and her family too!_

 _She reached out, marshaling her enormous power to dissipate the storm..._

 _But nothing happened. Her fear and despair were too powerful, her heart too shattered to properly call upon her love for her lost Anna._

 _Elsa tried again, becoming more frustrated and fearful with each failed attempt. And as her fear grew, so did the storm. It ringed the entire North Mountain, spreading in all directions, and now it had covered Arendelle completely. Sanne was still alive, Elsa could feel that much, but their already tenuous connection had grown so faint as to be intangible._

 _Elsa cleared her head, focusing on Anna and the deep love they felt for each other. But no longer had Elsa pictured Anna's smiling face in her mind than the bitter shock of Anna's death struck her with the force of a blow to her chest... and the storm swelled even more, and faster than before._

—O—

 _In Asgard, several gods and goddesses watched from Heimdall's vantage point atop Bifrost._

" _The storm continues to grow," Frigga said worriedly. "In hours it will cover most of Midgard."_

" _Her grief is immense," Freya said, sorrow in her voice. "Their love is one of the most powerful I have ever experienced, deep and rich in levels most people would never,_ could _never know."_

" _Do tell," Frigga said teasingly, casting a sideways glance at the younger goddess that brought a knowing smile to Freya's face._

 _Freya laughed, but then the laughter was replaced by a look of concern once more. "With her mate's death, her love has been overwhelmed by grief and fear, and her powers are running amok."_

" _I say we kill her," said Tyr, his deep, gravely voice causing several of the gathered gods to turn in surprise._

" _And how do we know that would stop this storm?!" Frigga said hotly. "Elsa will be one of us,_ is _one of us. Can she even be killed?"_

" _All that lives can die, and must die," came a new voice, and all present turned to regard the newcomer._

 _Odin the All-father strode forward into the gathering of gods, his spear Gungnir held tightly in his hand. "Only the time of death remains uncertain, for all of us," he spoke gravely. "What news of this mortal sorceress and her threat to Midgard?"_

" _She isn't a sorceress," Freya said coolly, "and she isn't mortal. She's one of us, transitioning into godhood. She's lost her True Love, and her powers are out of control."_

" _All the more reason to end her threat," intoned Tyr. "I could do it easily, quickly, with no suffering on her part."_

" _Other than the dying, you mean," Freya shot back, hands on her hips in a display of feminine annoyance as loquacious on Asgard as on Midgard. "She's already heartbroken, Tyr! She's hurting right now!"_

" _Then why prolong her suffering?" replied the war god, his voice softening slightly. "She threatens the entire world below. Surely this is more than enough reason for us to intervene."_

" _Perhaps one of us should talk to her?" came a timid voice from the outskirts of the assemblage of deities._

 _Heads turned to fix their gazes upon Idun, one of the youngest gods, and one of the most tentative. She mostly stayed within her orchard, tending her mystical apples away from the scrutiny or drama that others tended to bring with them wherever they went, but all the talk of the events brewing on Midgard had finally overcome her natural reluctance to join such a crowd_

 _Feeling her resolve wither in the combined gaze of so many deities, Idun hesitantly shrank back away from the assembly._

" _It might offer a chance to resolve this without any death," said Balder, ever hopeful and ever noble. "Should that not be our primary goal?"_

" _Aye," said Odin One-Eye, and all present turned to look at him again. "Skadi shall go speak with this fledgling god."_

 _A tired sigh came from the side of the crowd opposite that of Idun. A wizened woman, stooped in appearance and with hair as white as fresh-fallen snow, slowly made her way forward. "I think that would not be a good idea, Odin," Skadi said, her voice brittle with the weight of millenia behind her. She was the oldest of the gods who yet lived, and she had not left Asgard for centuries._

" _My title is All-father," Odin said gravely, bristling at the familiarity of the old god's words. "Or Lord Odin."_

 _Silence weighed heavily for several seconds before a cackle, followed by a wheeze and a few dry coughs resounded. "I have been a god since before your_ father _was born, Odin," Skadi said, body still shaking weakly with amusement. "Titles and pretentiousness are no concern of mine."_

" _You will go speak with this would-be god," Odin said firmly, taking a step forward as his one remaining eye began to flash with power. "Your powers are similar to hers, so you would be best suited to resist her magic should she resist or refuse to comply with our demands that she end this magical blizzard that threatens one of the nine worlds."_

" _Again, I think—"_

" _I HAVE SPOKEN!" roared Odin One-Eye, and Asgard itself trembled with his fury._

 _Skadi held the All-Father's glaring gaze for several seconds before bowing her head, a sad smile upon her lips. "You have spoken," she said quietly, looking up to meet his angry countenance before dissolving into a flurry of snow._

—O—

 _Elsa lay sprawled out on the plateau before the Ice Palace, her glittering blue gown wrinkled and bunched beneath her. She was exhausted from trying to stop the billowing storm, but it stubbornly refused all her attempts to control it. Her failures had intensified her fear and guilt, and that had in turn strengthened the storm even more. Now it covered over a quarter of the world, although Elsa herself was not aware of that worrisome fact._

 _She continued to cry, her tears piercing the blanket of snow beneath her with each frozen drop, but she knew that she could never stop this storm. Her True Love was gone, her heartbreak and fear too powerful to overcome._

 _A snapping sound from beside her drew her attention, though, and as Elsa looked up, she saw an old crone with hair whiter than her own standing next to her._

 _The old woman smiled as her eyes danced over Elsa's face and figure; though sadness permeated that smile, there was a genuineness to it that Elsa could feel but not appreciate, not now. "You truly are remarkable, Elsa of Arendelle, wife of Anna," spoke the old woman, and her kindly tone reminded Elsa of how Anna used to speak to Sanne or Brigid when one of them ha—_

 _The sight of Elsa being overcome with sobs once more nearly broke Skadi's heart. She felt her power fading now that she was here, and she knew her time was fleeting._

" _Look at me, Elsa," she said, a hint of iron in her voice now._

 _Elsa looked up, through her ceaseless tears. "Who...who are you?" she asked._

" _I am Skadi," said the old woman. "And my time is upon me."_

" _W-what do you mean?" asked Elsa, confused. All she could think about was Anna, who had spoken of her own impending death the days before her death, when the sickness had settled over her and refused to yield._

" _Your storm, born of your fear, despair and anguish threatens all of Midgard, young Elsa," Skadi said calmly._

" _I know!" Elsa replied, shaking her head. "I-I keep trying to stop it, to control it, but it refuses! It's—"_

" _Too powerful," finished the old goddess. "I know. And it grows more powerful still, now more than ever."_

" _I need Anna," Elsa said, trembling at the sound of the name she loved above all others. "I need Anna to stop the storm. I've tried to use my love for our children, for our grandchildren, but nothing else is—"_

 _Elsa's words stuck in her throat as she felt the storm double, then triple in size, all at once. "What's going on?!" she asked Skadi, the brilliant blue irises of her eyes barely visible as her pupils dilated with terror. "Why is the storm growing so quickly?"_

 _Skadi's smiled again, and the sadness in it was now painfully evident to Elsa. "Because my power is flowing to you, young goddess," she said calmly. "It speaks my end, and now nothing can stop it."_

 _Skadi shuffled forward a few steps, close enough to lovingly pat the top of Elsa's head. "You see, young one, it is your destiny to take my place as goddess of the cold and winter. It is the way of all things, as you know all too well."_

 _Elsa looked up at the elderly goddess, and now she could see as well as feel the currents of ice and magic that were visibly streaming from Skadi to her. "How can we stop this?!" Elsa cried._

" _It cannot be stopped," Skadi said, still attempting to comfort Elsa as much as she could in these last few moments. "Odin the All-father, in his great wisdom, has sent me down here to talk to you, and talk to you I have. But us being this close to each other has greatly accelerated the transition of magic between us, increasing your power and bringing me my rest at last."_

 _Now Elsa could feel the storm growing beyond the world, pressing and straining at boundaries she was not aware of only moments before. "What... What is happening to me?" she pleaded as she felt her monstrous creation, the greatest blizzard ever to exist, finally snap those hazy limits constraining it, roaring with triumph at its new-found might._

 _Skadi fell to her cracking, popping knees, with a fatigue that suggested she would never be able to rise from such a position. She reached out and took Elsa's hand, as a tingling began where their skin touched. "Goodbye, Elsa," she said, her features beginning to wither before Elsa's wide eyes. "I wish you only the best. May you see your Anna again soon."_

 _Then she was gone, leaving Elsa even more terrified than before... and just as alone._

—O—

" _The situation does not seem to have improved," Frigga said flatly._

 _Odin fumed, but he kept his silence as he glared at his wife. "TYR!" he barked, causing several of the gods (but not Frigga, who was well-used to her husband's temperament) to jump at the shout._

" _Yes, All-father", said the god of war, the golden cap on his right forearm where his hand should have been a testament to the god's bravery and honor._

" _How do you plan on killing her?" asked Odin. "She has taken Skadi's power! The storm she has unleashed upon us has covered all of Midgard, and now it spills into other worlds!" Already Heimdall could see great storm clouds raining gouts of snow and sleet across Alfheim and Svartlheim, with Vanaheim and Asgard both beginning to feel the bite of winter's cold in the air._

 _Tyr staunchly held Odin's gaze, quiet in his resolve. "Many years ago, Elsa created a sword for her wife Anna. It was a magical weapon, enchanted not only from Elsa's magical ice, but tempered with their love and devotion to each other as well. Such a weapon should be able to penetrate any defenses she may have and end her life."_

 _Odin considered Tyr's words. Finally he nodded. "Very well," he said calmly. "Use her sister's weapon and put an end to this storm."_

" _Her wife's."_

 _Odin turned to look at who had spoken, only to meet the glittering blue eyes of Freya, who matched the All-father's fierce gaze._

" _Her wife's weapon. Anna was more than Elsa's sister. She was her lover, her spouse, her mate." She held the chief of the gods' glare without yielding. "She was the only person who truly knew the depth of Elsa's suffering and pain, because she shared it with her. She was the only one who fully understood her, the only one who could offer Elsa everything just as Elsa did her. Elsa has lost much more than merely a sister, and we should all respect that."_

 _As the two gods continue to stare at each other, Freya smiled coldly. "As you might imagine, this is a bit of a soft spot of mine," she said, drawing several nervous laughs from around the gathering of gods. "In more ways than one."_

 _Swirls of magic began to coalesce around the All-father and the goddess of love and magic as the two locked gazes, neither side backing away from the slow but palpable build-up of power. Finally proud Odin drew in a deep breath and looked away. "So be it," he said, turning back to Tyr. "Take her wife's weapon and end the young god's life, as quickly and painlessly as possible. Release her from her suffering, brave Tyr."_

 _The dark-haired god nodded, then vanished._

—O—

 _When Tyr materialized in the bedroom Anna and Elsa had shared in their Ice Palace, he wasted no time looking around the room. As his eyes fell across the icy sword hanging proudly upon one wall, he smiled. He took no satisfaction in this task, but it had to be done, and better him than Thor, who would likely create an even bigger mess to clean up due to his haste and arrogance._

 _He strode across the room, eager to take the blade and strike before his presence could be registered by Elsa or any protections she might have in place in her home. That was his last thought as the fingers of his left hand curled around the ice blade's handle. The sword's immense stores of magic, already multiplied by the decades of love between Anna and Elsa and now enhanced by the transference of Skadi's powers to Elsa, blasted through Tyr's body, turning him into a roughly god-shaped statue of ice._

—O—

 _Elsa's new senses allowed her to see and feel what happened to the intruder who had dared to enter her and Anna's bedchambers, and as far as Elsa was concerned, he got what he deserved._

 _She would use her magic to remove the intruder's remains from the bedroom before Anna returned, so her wife wouldn't—_

 _As the brief distraction caused by the intruder's presence gave way to the bitter truth of her situation, Elsa felt her grief and fear of her runaway magic wash over her once more. She buried her face into her hands as she began to weep again, her tears and sorrow and guilt adding more force to the storm now stretching over most of the nine worlds._

—O—

 **Author's Afterword:** Before anyone mentions it, yes, the behavior of some of the characters in the fairy tale can be a bit extreme and one-sided. It is a fairy tale, after all, and some facets of the tale tend to be played up for dramatic purposes. Elsa's grief may seem extreme and excessive, but 1) she _has_ lost her True Love, who also happened to be the only person who could help her control her runaway powers the first time, and 2) that's how people tend to act in stories such as this, to better illustrate the tale being told.

I make no apologies for Freya. Goddess gonna be who goddess gotta be.

This wasn't the easiest chapter to write, but it's necessary. Hang in there. One more chapter to go.

Jo


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** It's felt good to get this out of my head, where it has taken up residence and been very loud for the last year. I hope all of you have enjoyed it, because it was very fun to write! Hopefully it's been entertaining and stirred a few emotions as you've read it, because that's what it's all about. Time to bring things home.

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Frozen or any of the Disney characters held within. All of them are being used under Fair Use, and I have not and will not make any profit from this story.

 **An Elsanna Fairy Tale**

Chapter 3: Prestige

by Jo K.

 _What am I fighting for_

 _If I win I lose my life_

 _I need you more and more_

 _To break my will tonight_

 _Only love can set us free_

 _Only love can bear the truth_

 _Only love can bring us peace_

 _Only love can save me and you_

-Sophie B. Hawkins, "Only Love"

—O—

The snow had picked back up again as Dani walked the streets of Arendelle, trying to follow Tove's directions to the small corner market despite most of the street signs being covered with snow and ice.

Trying to walk through the narrow paths that had been carved through the nearly six feet of snow that had fallen over the last ten days made her feel like a rat meandering through a maze, following its senses while searching for some elusive goal that remained stubbornly out of sight until the very end. The fact that most of Arendelle continued to go about its business despite the ridiculous volume of snow dumped on the country was still perplexing to Dani.

By now it seemed like almost everyone she saw wore either Elsa's single blonde braid or Anna's twin coppery braids, either as a wig or as part of a hat of some sort. Ball caps, toboggans, ski caps, fisherman hats, berets, it seemed as though practically any headwear imaginable could be found accessorized with the trademark hair of the goddesses of love—at least in Arendelle.

Spotting the small market at last, Dani smiled, stepping to the side to allow a young couple pushing a stroller to pass in front of her. As the young family moved past her, chatting about something, she saw the baby in the stroller was asleep, bundled securely against the cold with only the tiny face peeking out beneath the thick coat and blanket. The mother and father, both brunettes, had on toboggans, black for the husband, pastel blue for the wife, with Anna's reddish braids dangling down the man's back and Elsa's thick platinum braid laid carefully across the woman's left shoulder.

The sight no longer was surprising to Dani, not any more, though it continued to make her feel warm inside to see love being celebrated so openly and universally in this town. She made her way across the street, the thick white coat of snow covering it unmarred by footprints or tire tracks due to the height and depth of the accumulation. The first few days, sleighs and horses had been used to traverse the roads, but the continued snowfall made even them unusable for the last few days. Footpaths continued to be cleared, though, both through the diligent work of people who seemed to cooperate with keeping the paths clear as well as through the persistent steps of pedestrians continuing to pass to and fro despite the blizzard.

As she opened the door and stepped into the small market, she immediately felt a bit more at home. The size and open layout reminded her of the markets she liked to shop in back in Manhattan, and she even caught herself singing slightly as she made her way through the bins and shelves, collecting vegetables and groceries to cook for dinner tonight.

Arendelle was starting to feel like home, as bizarre as that sounded. She found herself looking forward to opening the curtains in her little bedroom and looking out at the small city below her, the mountains in the background, the snow still falling on most days but seeming to lessen recently. She still wasn't entirely sure how she felt about Tove, but now she caught herself several times a day considering what it would be like to be in a relationship with the Arendellan brunette.

Would they kiss each morning when they awoke, ignoring morning breath and tousled hair? Would they tell each other to have a good day when Tove went downstairs to open the pub, or when Dani had to leave for work? Would they tease and play with each other without the jibes becoming barbed or biting? How would the sex be? Would it feel awkward at first, or would it feel like something she had been missing her whole life and just never realized it?

Someone bumping into her right hip jostled Dani out of her pondering in the vegetable section.

"You looked like you were thinking some serious thoughts," said Karla, her dark curly hair and teasing smile both apparently at full strength today.

"Hey!" Dani said, happily. She reached out and gave the teenager a hug, throwing the girl off slightly. "How are you?" she asked. "Not driving anywhere today, I assume."

"I'm good!" Karla replied, seeming to regain her poise quickly. "I thought for a minute I had made a mistake, bumping you like that. Wasn't sure how you were going to react."

"I was just thinking," Dani replied breezily, inspecting some rather nice zucchini in the bin in front of them.

"About what?" asked Karla, either not catching or simply choosing to ignore Dani's attempt to brush off the subject. Grinning further, she added, "Or is it about _whom?"_

The tinge of pink that colored Dani's cheeks was enough of a reply, and before the American could speak, Karla laughed once. "I knew it!" the girl cried triumphantly. "And I bet I know who it is, too. Don't I?"

Dani nodded her head. "Fine," she said quietly, but despite her attempts to stop them, her lips curled into a slight smile of their accord. "She's really something else."

Karla nodded, adding three zucchini of her own to her basket. "Tove is, isn't she?" she said. "She went through a lot." Karla looked up suddenly. "Did she talk to you about any of... what she went through?"

Dani nodded. "Not at first. She did tell me about her parents dying the third night I was here. But night before last, she started talking about some of the abuse she suffered with her last girlfriend." Dani swallowed, her eyes threatening to tear up. "God, I can't believe she put up with it for three years."

Karla nodded. "She's got such a good heart that she always tries to see the best in people. But she finally realized that what she was going through wasn't love, it was torture. It was cruelty and meanness, and once she finally accepted that, she left."

"Was she in the United States when that happened?" Dani asked, suddenly making a connection.

Karla nodded as the two moved into the section of the market with dry goods. "That was when she came back here and took over her family's pub. A friend of her parents had been running it since their death, and he was happy to give the keys back to Tove, both because he wanted out of the headache of running the place, and because it really should stay in Tove's family. Her family's run it for sixty years, going back to Tove's grandparents."

"Wow, so it's kind of part of her family," Dani said, considering the girl's words.

"It is," Karla replied briefly. She stopped in mid-reach for a box of rice, then turned her head to look at Dani again. "You know, the blizzard's beginning to spend itself out. The time when it's not snowing is getting longer. I'm guessing the roads are going to be cleared before too much longer, maybe four or five days. Once they're clear, I'll swing by and pick you up to take you to the airport." She smiled again, this time with what might have been a hint of resignation. "I bet you'll be glad to get back home, huh?" She waved, then took a few steps backward. "See you then, if not sooner!" she said, then she turned and walked away.

Dani stood there for a few minutes, thinking over the ramifications of Karla's words and trying to resolve her sudden confusion as to how exactly she _did_ feel about leaving Arendelle and going back to New York.

—O—

 _The eruption of hushed voices and urgent whispering throughout the gathering of deities in Asgard was immediate. Tyr's incapacitation had established that no one would be using Anna's magical ice blade against Elsa, removing their best strategist and his plan at the same time._

" _I will go talk to her," Freya said, stepping forward only to have Odin grab her left arm, halting her motion._

 _The goddess of magic gave Odin a fierce glare, prompting him to quickly release her from his grasp. "Do you have a better idea?" Freya spat at the All-father, resentful of his gesture regardless of his intentions._

" _What idea I have is that sending Skadi to speak with this Elsa proved to be a terrible mistake on my part," Odin said, careful to keep his voice neutral, a pointed display of courtesy on the part of the chief of the gods. "A mistake I do not wish to make again, with no less than the goddess of magic and love herself this time."_

 _Freya held her angry glare, locking gazes with Odin's single eye for several seconds before forcing herself to calm down. "Remarkable foresight on your part," she spoke flatly._

" _The storm has spread to all of the nine worlds save for Muspelheim and Asgard," spoke the deep voice of Heimdall, his eyes ever watchful as he gazed down the abstract length of the Bifrost. "Niflheim is even more of an icy tomb than it was to begin with, and Helheim itself groans under the spreading ice and falling snow. Alfheim and Svartalfheim are now both entirely frozen, as is Midgard herself. The ice quickly covers more of Vanaheim by the minute, and the giants of Jotunheim are frozen, stiff and still, in the icy prison that their realm has become. Even the frost giants are held fast in the grasp of this magic."_

" _I imagine the flame giants and their fiery realm might be immune to this icy onslaught," said Balder, always trying to find a ray of hope in the darkest night, but his optimistic observation did not bring much cheer to his peers. "Asgard also remains clear of this storm!"_

 _The sudden flurry of snow that blew across Asgard and through the assemblage of gods and goddesses brought shudders among many of them, although whether that involuntary reaction was from the suddenly falling temperature or from silent surges of fear was unclear._

—O—

"So, what, everyone was dead?"

Tove looked down at the blonde hair spilling across her lap and the head attached to it, with Dani's face looking up at her. The two of them were seated on the couch upstairs, with Tove reclining against one side of the large couch and Dani lying between her legs, resting her head on Tove's thighs while quietly listening to the story. Until just then.

"What?" Tove asked, stopping the motion of her fingers gliding through Dani's hair.

"You just said that Midgard was frozen, along with those other worlds, Elf-land and—"

" _Alfheim_ and Svartalfheim."

"Yeah, those. So if those worlds were frozen, was everyone in them dead?"

"Not yet," said Tove. "Either Elsa's magic kept them alive or they just hadn't frozen to death before—"

"Don't skip ahead!" Dani shouted, her body stiffening. "I _hate_ it when people spoil the ending for me!"

Tove grinned proudly as she watched Dani's eyes close slowly and her lips shift into a content smile when the blonde settled back down into her previous position. "Dinner was wonderful," Tove said quietly. "Thank you for making it."

"It was the least I could do," replied Dani, her voice soft with comfort and sleepiness. "You've been so wonderful, and I need to do more to help you since you've let me stay here for so long." Her smile flattened into a frown before she spoke, "I'm not looking forward to leaving when the roads are clear."

 _I hope the roads are never cleared again,_ Tove thought, then immediately felt guilty for the selfishness of her thought. _She has a home back in the United States. Expecting her to drop everything and stay here with me is ridiculous. Stop wishing for things that can never be._ She took in a breath that didn't feel very calming before letting it back out again softly.

—O—

" _Fetch me Thor."_

 _Gasps from around the crowd were followed by Frigga stepping forward to look Odin directly in the eye._

" _Odin, no!" his wife said, her aged face sorrowful. "The girl doesn't deserve that!"_

" _What she deserves is irrelevant at this point," spoke the All-father, his face grimly set. "She threatens the Nine Worlds with extinction. The time for gentleness has passed."_

—O—

 _The explosive crack of lightning striking the ground close to her startled Elsa out of her constant sobbing. She looked up, once-blue eyes now shot with red and blurred with tears as she saw a large, fearsome man stepping out of the swirling smoke and snow thrown into the air by the bolt of electricity._

 _As she took in his fiery red hair and beard, her thoughts immediately went back to her dear lost Anna, but the rapidly building glow of the surprisingly small hammer in the man's hand seized her attention once more, and she knew who this had to be._

 _She had no time to even speak his name before the burning hammer was streaking toward her, its flight through the air making the air itself sizzle with its passage. Elsa dove to the side reflexively, drawing a wall of ice up from the ground to shield herself from the powerful impact of the hammer striking where she had been standing. Rocks and earth flew with the clap of thunder brought forth by the hammer's strike, but with her new power, the icy shield held fast against the earthen debris._

 _The sight of the hammer flying back to its owner confirmed Elsa's suspicions about the man's identity. "I'm trying to stop the storm!" she shouted, her voice barely audible over the crashing thunder now echoing through the mountains._

" _As am I!" Thor shouted in reply before he hurled Mjolnir again at the young ice goddess._

 _Elsa threw up another wall of ice, this time directly between her and Mjolnir, but the enchanted hammer's direct strike shattered the wall of ice, sending Elsa awkwardly spinning to the ground as the powerful weapon scorched through the air just above her before arcing upward to return to the thunder god's right hand._

" _Stop fighting and accept your fate, little god!" shouted Thor, his hammer returning to his gloved hand with a smack of impact. "You couldn't control your power even before you stole Skadi's magic! Be glad your dead woman isn't here to see what you've done in your grief and fear!"_

 _A stinging impact on the thunderer's face sent him sprawling backward onto the snow. He growled as he brushed sleet and snow from his face, pushing himself up from his prone position, only to stop when he saw the sight ahead of him._

 _Elsa stood firm, her face lined with fury, teeth bared in a furious snarl as a tornado of ice and snow swirled around her. Her eyes now glowed with a brilliant cobalt light, her fingers flexed tightly like talons as she leaned forward, fixing the thunder god with a glare so terrible that he could feel his beard begin to rime with frost._

"Don't you EVER talk like that about Anna!" _Elsa screamed, and the howling wind rose in pitch and intensity to match her cry._

 _Thor drew his right arm back to hurl Mjolnir again, only to have icy tendrils wrap around his arm, holding him fast. He spun around, striking the icy constructs with the edge of his left hand, using his prodigious strength to snap them as if they were icicles. He raised Mjolnir high into the air, calling forth the lightning that was his birthright._

 _Multiple tongues of burning electricity lanced down from the black clouds above to strike at Elsa, temporarily blinding Thor with their brilliance. But as his eyes quickly adjusted, he was presented with something he had not expected._

 _Elsa yet stood, the very air around her still steaming from the lightning's heat, her once-beautiful gown (a gift to her from Anna, for their fifth anniversary, although the thunder god was not aware of that fact) now torn and scorched in several places. If anything, her expression was even more furious that it had been before._

 _Waving both her arms out to the side, Elsa materialized dozens of glittering icicles in front of her, their razor-sharp points all aimed directly at the thunderer. She stabbed her arms forward, sending the deadly missiles flying at the red-bearded god._

 _Thor spun his hammer by the looped leather strap at its base, whirling it so quickly as to create a circular shield upon which most of the icy weapons struck and shattered. But then Elsa smiled and clenched her fingers into fists. Immediately the ice spikes which had shot around Thor and Mjolnir turned and flew back, embedding themselves into his back, his arms and legs._

 _The thunder god roared with pain as trickles of blood began to seep out of the many wounds, then he grinned with his own appreciation of a good fight._

 _A torrent of ice shot forth from Elsa's hand toward Thor, only to be met by a stream of crackling white electricity spewing from Mjolnir. The two elemental forces struck each other with a fury so great as to make the mountains around them tremble. Flashes of light and frost danced upon the snowy terrain in a lethal parody of the Northern Lights, sustained for several minutes. Then Thor abruptly leaped to his right, falling to his knee as he raised Mjolnir again, calling down the lightning once more._

 _As the bolts of electricity struck Elsa repeatedly, Thor used that moment to hurl Mjolnir at her chest, putting all of his might into the throw._

 _As Mjolnir streaked to its target, its glow tracing a seemingly solid line of light along its path, Elsa stepped forward, out of the barrage of lightning, screaming with primal rage and fury as she unleashed all of her power, all of her frustration, all of her anguish into a gout of bitterest cold that swept over Mjolnir and thunder god alike, burying them both in its raging destruction._

 _Elsa fell to her knees, momentarily spent at her exertion. Less than ten meters away from her, Mjolnir was suspended in a crystal of ice nearly as wide as Elsa was tall, a thin curving stem of ice connecting the frozen weapon's prison to the ground. Farther away, the frozen form of Thor was likewise encased in a solid chunk of ice, motionless and helpless._

 _As Elsa's fury ebbed in her exhaustion, she felt the storm sweeping across the cosmos had grown even more powerful, and she wept again. She truly was a monster without Anna and their love to assuage her fear, and with Anna gone there was no hope for the world._

 _And then a thought occurred to Elsa. For the first time in what seemed like weeks, the hints of a true smile slowly spread across Elsa's face. She carefully stood, the snow falling off of her dress where it had adhered with a mere thought of her part, and for the first time since the great storm that spanned the nine worlds (for despite the impossibility of its occurrence, snow was now beginning to fall in Muspelheim) first appeared, Elsa felt a flicker of hope ignite in her heart._

" _If I_ am _a goddess as Skadi said," Elsa said slowly, "then I'll just go get Anna myself."_

—O—

"Okay, I have a question," Dani asked, taking another bite of her kringle as she and Tove walked through the busy streets, the stars sparkling in the night sky above Arendelle. They had just attended a quite adorable play put on by some of the school children, held on a small outdoor stage in one of the city's parks despite the cold weather. It had been remarkably well-attended; both dwindling snowfall and fierce parental pride seemed to be equally behind the large crowd.

Hot chocolate, coffee, tea and warm cider were being sold by several vendors lining the park, along with the now ubiquitous stands proffering Elsa and Anna wigs, hats, dresses, tiaras, shirts, hoodies, jackets, necklaces and even more trinkets and keepsakes than Dani could count. Snow had been carefully shoveled and moved to make paths for children and adults alike, and all spirits seemed to be jovial and joyous as the crowd cheered and applauded the students' hard work.

The first half of the play had been put on by younger students, primary and intermediate ages, while the second half was performed by older children, all teenagers, telling the story of Anna and Elsa that Tove had told Dani during their first nights together.

Tove turned and looked at Dani, taking a drink of her hot tea as they walked. "What's your question?" she asked, stepping carefully to the side to avoid three small children running toward them, laughing as they ran to and fro.

"Why aren't you in the spirit?" Dani asked teasingly, flashing a quick smile to Tove, who looked momentarily confused until Dani reached behind her head and pulled a long blonde braid out from beneath her coat, letting it drop loosely down her back.

"Oh," Tove said, a smile replacing the brief look of perplexity on her face. "Well, if you're going to do that, then I suppose I have no choice, do I?" she asked, not daring to consider the possible implications of Dani's wearing the blonde braid.

They stopped at one of the small heated stands selling Festival souvenirs; when Tove tried to pay for a blue baseball cap with Anna's long red braids, the man at the register instead lightheartedly argued with her, refusing to take her money after a brief discussion in Norwegian.

As Tove tugged the cap onto her head and they stepped back into the excited crowd, Dani stepped behind Tove to help reposition the cinnamon braids slightly. "What did he tell you?" she asked the Arendellan woman.

"He said that instead of paying, I could just feed him for free the next he came to the Two Queens," Tove replied, trying to conceal the light flushing of her cheeks. _He also told me that he hoped you made me very happy_ , she thought to herself, _but we'll just leave that part out for now._

As they walked Tove strove once again to steel her resolve. _Dani has made it clear that she just wants to be friends, and I have to—I will—accept that. I'm not going to try to sway her or influence her, because that wouldn't be fair to her. I do care about her, and that means respecting her feelings as they are._

As she felt Dani's arm grasp her around her waist, pulling her into a walking embrace, she felt her resolve waver slightly. _But gods, I do love her,_ she thought sadly.

—O—

 _Elsa had used her powers in this way more than once, extending her awareness around her, searching for someone (usually Anna or one of their children) or something. But while she could extend her awareness through the cold, snow and ice before, when she began the process this time, it instantly felt different._

 _It was snowing everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Throughout the nine worlds, she could feel tendrils of awareness, seeking, probing, for places she had never experienced, only names and vague ideas. But she wasn't about to let that keep her from Anna._

" _Elsa," said a carefully friendly voice, sparking Elsa's attention back to the world around her physical body._

 _Looking around, Elsa instantly began gathering her power around her hands, flakes and crystals of ice and frost sparkling as they swirled into existence around her hands and forearms. However, the young woman with long golden hair walking toward her showed no signs of aggression._

" _I am Freya," spoke the newcomer, lifting her open hands, palms facing toward Elsa, in a gesture intended to show peacefulness. "I'm here to help you try to control this storm you've accidentally unleashed, Elsa."_

" _I'll h-have to have Anna to control it," Elsa said, trying with all her might to keep her expression from breaking down again. "I'm going to get her right now."_

 _Sadness etched Freya's face as she allowed herself to smile ever-so-slightly. "And where are you going to find her, Elsa?" she asked, trying to keep from upsetting the young goddess._

" _I'll start with Valhalla first," Elsa said, only to stop herself and look pointedly at Freya. "Do you have her?" she asked accusingly._

 _Freya shook her head sadly. "I do not," she replied. "Although I would have been honored to have received her in Folkvangr. She was a skilled warrior, brave and just."_

" _Yes, she was," Elsa said, nodding her head as her eyes again filled with tears. "Then I'll go to Valhalla first. I'll find a way to get there."_

" _I am sure you would," Freya said, stepping forward slowly, carefully, so as not to frighten or threaten Elsa. "But Anna isn't there either."_

" _What?!" Elsa said loudly. "Where is she then?"_

 _Now Freya was close enough to gently reach out and lightly touch Elsa's right forearm. "I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, Elsa," she said, causing a shiver to speed through Elsa's body. "Anna was a fierce, skilled warrior, yes. But she didn't die in battle."_

" _What are you..."_

" _She died of old age. And those who die of old age don't go to Folkvangr, or Valhalla. They go to—"_

" _To Helheim," Elsa finished, her breath so shallow and thready that the words were nearly inaudible. "To Hel."_

 _Her jaw quivered as she thought of Anna, trapped in Helheim, condemned to a dark, cruel eternity that she surely never deserved. She sobbed against a tightly clenched mouth, all her sorrow of the last few days now multiplied by Anna's unjust suffering. Her emotions, along with her stomach, roiled within her, making her nauseous and furious in equal measure as the true bleakness of the situation settled over her like a pall. And then she screamed, long and loud, her voice shrill with frustration, with anger, with despair and sorrow, and all of Midgard for miles around her froze in the path of her unleashed emotions..._

 _Including Freya._

—O—

"The roads are supposed to be passable tomorrow," Tove finally said, breaking the uncomfortable silence that weighed oppressively over what would likely be their last dinner together.

Dani nodded glumly, not meeting the brunette's searching eyes. "I know," she added, and there was a definite heaviness in her voice. "Please let me do the dishes tonight," she said, finally looking up, meeting eyes that appeared to be limned with unshed tears, just like her own. "It's the—" she got out before her throat closed up on her. She swallowed tightly before trying again. "It's... the least I can do. For you. For all you've done for me."

Tove reached out and took Dani's left hand across the small table they had eaten on every night for the last two weeks. "You don't owe me anything, Dani," Tove said, giving her friend's hand a squeeze.

"Yeah, I do," Dani replied, nodding several times. "For more than... For more than you know."

"It was my pleasure to be here for you."

Neither of them spoke for several minutes, as they simply sat in the quietness of the small dining room. Neither moved to release the other's hand, so they continued to sit that way, at times with a thumb or finger gently rubbing soft, warm skin below without protest from either woman. Below them, the sounds muffled by the thick flooring and high roof, the pub was busy, with people celebrating the Festival of Love as well as the roads opening back up the next day.

"I need to go down and help out for a bit," Tove finally said, apology in her tone. "I'm sorry that I can't—"

"Hey," Dani said, giving Tove's hand a brief shake. "No apologies, okay? It's your business. You don't have to keep me company."

"I know," Tove replied. "But I want to."

The unspoken emotion swirling behind Tove's eyes was more eloquent that any words Dani could have heard, and she felt something deep inside her heart that had been straining for days finally yield. "Go check on your girls downstairs," Dani said, feeling a single tear escape her lashes and rebelliously streak down her left cheek. "I'll still be here when you come back up." She patted Tove's hand before letting it go.

Tove slowly stood, the expression on her face vacillating between a smile and sorrow. She slowly walked around the table, then stopped. She bent over and gently placed a kiss on top of Dani's blonde head. She smiled finally, then she turned and walked to the door leading to the stairs.

—O—

"Astrid!" Tove called to the server, passing by with a tray of used plates and glasses. The server stopped and turned, and the slight smile that drew across her lips momentarily unsettled Tove. _"Is, uh, everything okay? Down here, I mean?"_ she asked the girl in Norwegian

Astrid nodded. _"Going smooth for what's pretty much a party night,"_ she replied. _"Oh, I left that stuff the American girl asked me to get for her in your office. Figured you could take it up to her later."_ Then the server resumed her walk into the kitchen.

Surprised, Tove simply stood there for several seconds. She was still standing there when Astrid walked past her again on her way out to the pub, this time carrying a smaller tray with prepared meals on it. She gave Tove a quizzical look but didn't stop as she walked past the puzzled brunette again.

Curious as to what Dani would have asked Astrid to acquire for her, Tove went directly into her office. After all, it sounded like her staff really did have things under control.

As she went into her office, Tove flicked the light switch on, then closed the door behind her. A small stack of printed papers and a folded newspaper rested on her desk. Tove curiously eyed the items as she took her seat behind the desk.

The newspaper appeared unremarkable until she reached the final pages. Among the classified section, several listings for small apartments had been circled. The printed pages included images of apartments and small houses for rent, both in and around the city, along with notations that suggested Astrid was offering her own opinions on the suitability, or lack thereof, of each place. All the notes were in Norwegian, but Tove still smiled at the sweet gesture on the girl's part.

Tove could barely breathe. _She's thinking about staying here. Oh Elsa and Anna and ALL the gods, she's thinking about staying._

But did it mean she was interested in Tove, or did it just mean she loved living here? That was a vital distinction, and Tove didn't want to get her hopes up, setting her sights on something impossible. Just because Dani was looking didn't mean she was staying. Her home right now was back in New York City, her job was...

Well. Her job as a photojournalist involved a great deal of travel. And Dani had completed her current project on the Northern Lights and submitted everything online while she had been stranded in Arendelle, with backups of everything on her camera and laptop computer. So maybe it wasn't so far-fetched to think of Dani staying here.

But then that could be a new kind of torture, having such a good friend so close at hand, when deep inside Tove _wanted_ it to be more.

Tove stacked the papers back up neatly, then picked them up as she stood.

She went quietly back upstairs, not wanting to presume anything but feeling the embers of hope still warm in her heart heating up slightly with each step she took. When she reached the apartment level, she stopped, momentarily surprised to not see Dani in the dining or kitchen area.

Then she heard Dani's voice coming from the living room, where the landline telephone was. Tove moved quietly, not wanting to startle or disturb Dani should she be on an important call, but as she drew near, she could hear Dani's side of the conversation.

"No, mom! Mom. MOM!" Dani said, before sighing heavily. "Look, I'm... I'm just not sure I'm going back to Manhattan yet, okay?"

There was a pause before Dani spoke again, likely listening to whatever her mother was saying. "Mom, I love it over here. It's incredible, and it's _so_ beautiful. People are all nice and friendly, everything is within easy walking distance, and it's just so, so... _peaceful_ here. And I think I need some of that right now."

Another pause, followed by Dani speaking again. "Yes, I have been trapped here for the last two weeks. But I'm glad it happened." A shorter pause, followed by Dani audibly taking a deep breath.

"Mom, I-I've... met someone."

Another pause.

"Yes, mom."

"No, mom."

"I know it's only been three months since all that shit went down, but _Mom_! You wouldn't _believe_ what Tove is like!"

"She's kind, she's sweet, she's smart, she's—"

This pause was longer than the others, lasting several seconds before Dani spoke again.

"Yes, Mom. I said _she_. As in a woman."

"Mom."

"MOM!"

" _Jesus,_ Mom! You have _no idea_ how happy I've been over here with her! These last two weeks have been better than a vacation! I got my work done and sent in on time, and it was Tove who got me up on the mountain to take some of the best pictures I've ever captured! She gave me a place to stay, she's fed me, she's showed me around, she's told me about the area's history and culture, she's been—"

There was a longer pause, and when Dani spoke again, it was in a deep register Tove had never heard come from the American woman's mouth. "Don't... you... _dare_ say shit like that about her!" Dani spat into the phone. "She would _never_ take advantage of me like that. When I told her that I wasn't gay, she worked extra hard to not make me feel uncomfortable, to not make me feel pressured, and she never let it affect our friendship, even though I knew it hurt her badly when I told her that."

After another lengthy pause, Dani spoke again. Her voice wasn't as deep and threatening as before, but it was far from friendly. "Well, maybe I changed my mind. Maybe I _am_ attracted to her. Not only is she _freaking beautiful_ , she's the best person I've ever met. She runs a business that's been in her family for over fifty years, she's smart with money, she's mature emotionally, she's mentally stable, she's kind to everybody, and she's treated me better than any man I've ever dated!"

"No, I can live over here and still work at my job."

"I already fly around the world, Mom. I can submit all my photos and articles from here, thanks to this thing called the Internet. Maybe you've heard of it."

"Well, maybe you shouldn't be such a smart-ass with _me!_ Did you think about that?"

"Look, why are you so ag—"

"Why did you put Dad on the phone?"

"Dad. DAD!"

"Goddammit, Dad! I care about her. I... I think I lo—"

An anguished whine could be heard in place of Dani's voice. The soft keening sent chills up Tove's spine ever from her position out in the hallway, and it took all she had to not rush into the living room and take the phone away from Dani.

"Don't... don't say things like that," Dani said, her voice no longer defiant and proud but pleading and hesitant. "No, I _didn't_ deserve to be treated like that! He had no right to steal from me, to cheat on me, to—"

"No, Mom, it wasn't like that. I _did_ try. I tried _everything_ except giving up my job, my _career_ , for him, and it still wasn't good enough. _I_ wasn't good enough!"

"That relationship with him almost killed me. Do either of you really understand that?"

"No, I am _not_ talking crazy talk! You have no idea how much I was hurting inside, because _you weren't fucking there!"_

The sound of sobbing began to emanate from the room, and Tove felt her own eyes burning in sympathy.

"You don't know..." Dani said weakly. "You don't know how much I... How much she means to me, even after just two weeks."

"WHY CAN'T YOU JUST BE HAPPY FOR ME?!" Dani screamed suddenly, making Tove jump. "Why does it always have to be some guy that one or both of you wants to set me up with, because they all turn out to be liars, or cheaters, or assholes!"

A soft thump came from the room, prompting Tove to look into the room. She saw Dani now sitting on the floor, her back facing Tove as she stared at the fire burning low in the fireplace for a long, painful minute.

"Please don't call me that."

The pain in that voice drew Tove's attention back to the young woman seated on the floor, crying from the way her free hand was swiping at her face.

"I'm not worthless," Dani said, her voice pained. "I'm n-not a whore." She sniffed loudly, coughing once. "I'm not going to Hell, either. Don't talk to me like—"

Tove gently taking the telephone handset from her hand cut off what Dani was about to say. "Shhh," Tove whispered softly as she carefully placed the handset back on the telephone's base, silencing the audible but unintelligible stream of hatred and invective blaring through the receiver.

When she sat down on the floor next to Dani, the blonde threw herself into Tove's arms, finally releasing all of the hurt and pain that had been brought forcefully to the surface by the conversation with her parents. They sat there for thirty minutes, until both posteriors had begun to go numb, Tove holding Dani and singing softly to her in Norwegian while Dani cried and shook, clutching to Tove as if she was a life preserver and Dani was drowning in dark, stormy waters.

—O—

 _In Asgard high above, the assembly of gods and goddesses fell silent at the arrival of the newcomer. Shadows seemed to darken and lengthen, and the air grew even colder. Several gods visibly shrunk away as the tall, fearsome woman strode through the snow accumulating on the ground, leaving footprints as intimidating as her ruined face, half beautiful, half sickly blue and withered as unto death._

" _Hel," said Odin One-Eye, who refused to fear the goddess of the dead._

" _Lord Odin," replied Hel, her voice raspy and dry. "There seems to be a problem in Helheim."_

" _Oh?" asked the All-father._

" _Yes. It is completely encased in ice."_

 _Odin nodded his head gravely, considering her words. "I believe I know the source of your problem, death-goddess." He gestured to the image being projected from the Bifrost._

 _Hel stepped forward, both her bright blue eye and her glassy white one fixing on the sight of Elsa, surrounded by snow and ice for miles in all direction, broken down and sobbing among the bright white wasteland. "Who is this?"_

" _A young goddess," said Frigga, stepping forward. "Who has lost her life's love."_

 _Hel snorted disdainfully. "She should learn to control her powers, ere she come to my realm sooner than the Norns intend."_

 _Odin turned to look at Hel, who looked away from the image of Elsa to meet the All-father's one-eyed gaze. "Her wife is within your realm," Odin said. "She was a fierce warrior, but time wins all battles in the end."_

 _Hel nodded. It was a story she had heard, and seen, endless times before. "And what would you have me do?" she finally asked after long moments of silence._

" _Could you free her wife's spirit?" asked Frigga, since it seemed no one else was willing to speak the words aloud._

 _Hel's face twisted, the beautiful left half forming a cruel smile while the ruined right half seemed to snarl more than it already was. "Let him ask me," Hel said, tilting her head in the All-father's direction._

 _Frigga turned to look at Odin, who in turn begrudgingly met her gaze, then he turned to the goddess of death once more. "Lady Hel, will you please release the spirit of Anna, wife of Elsa, from your realm?"_

 _Hel smiled (and sneered) even more, closing her eyes and relishing the request. Each second she stood thus, Odin felt himself grow more and more irritated, and he was practically fuming by the time Hel's eyes snapped open. "No," she said simply, then turned to leave._

" _NO?!" roared Odin, and the wind and falling snow briefly blew away from the gods gathered around him and the death-goddess as his temper rose. "NO?!" he roared again._

 _Hel turned and met his gaze. "Was I not clear enough, Lord Odin?" she asked, her voice fawningly obsequious._

 _She took several steps back toward the lord of the gods. "There was a pact struck millenia ago, and that pact specifies the division of the souls of the dead. You took your share of the brightest and bravest warriors, and what remains of dear Freya did the same. The two of you left the rest of the souls to me, putting it upon me to house, feed and care for the dregs of humanity, those whom you deemed unworthy to set foot in your precious Valhalla, or in Freya's pretty little Folkvangr. I was stuck with the task of guarding those souls neither of you wanted. I was left to manage a realm mired in perpetual gloom and sorrow." Hel stood up straighter, towering over all the other gods by a head-and-a-half._

" _But I have done my duty," she hissed as she looked around, venom in her words. "And now you will respect the pact in your own right." She turned back to the All-father, and she coldly held his gaze. "This 'Anna' is mine to keep, and I will not give her back, though Helheim and the other eight worlds freeze for eternity."_

—O—

" _Elsa?"_

 _At the sound of that voice, Elsa jumped to her feet, her heart beating wildly. "Anna?!" she shouted, looking around until her eyes finally fell upon cinnamon hair, freckles painted with abandon across a fair face that was once again youthful and vital, eyes of aquamarine and a smile of pure light and warmth. "ANNA!"_

 _Elsa stumbled toward Anna, whose smile was beaming as the two of them quickly walked toward each other, finally meeting in a embrace that left Elsa crying tears of joy instead of sorrow. "How are you here?" Elsa whispered, not daring to let Anna go now that she was in Elsa's arms again._

" _The gods convinced Hel to release me, so that we could stop this blizzard that's devouring the nine worlds," Anna said calmly. "They knew that you needed love to end the storm, and that your love had been broken when I died."_

 _Elsa sobbed as she heard Anna's words, so lost in the emotion of their reunion that she paid no mind to Anna's arms and hands moving slightly behind Elsa's back while they held each other. Elsa had no way to see the slim dagger withdrawn from the long sleeve of Anna's dress, nor the clear, odorless poison that coated its blade with a dull sheen. She could not see the smirk that crossed Anna's lips in a way that seemed unnatural for that fair, happy face._

 _But she_ did _feel Anna shiver from the cold._

 _It was just once, so slight as to be missed were it not for the intimacy of their embrace, but to Elsa it was a sensation so foreign to Anna, who was loved by the cold as much as Elsa herself, as to be unheard of._

 _Elsa's power erupted from her body with a ferociousness that picked Anna up, sending her tumbling in the torrent of cold and ice that sprayed around Elsa in all directions, its fury proportionate to Elsa's own. Elsa whirled around in time to see Anna's figure shift into that of a slim male, with short dark eyes and a cruel sneer that was now quite literally frozen onto his face, the poisoned dagger still held within his grip, ineffectual in his current predicament._

" _Loki," Elsa snarled, and she blasted him again for good measure, tightening his icy prison so that it squeezed him painfully._

 _A snapping sound behind her made Elsa whirl, a stream of ice and frost already forming around her left hand as she spun._

" _Stay your hand, ice goddess," spoke the woman, who was easily the tallest woman Elsa had ever seen. Long dark hair fell from her head down her back, but even more notable was this woman's face, half fair and beautiful, half blue as a drowned corpse with a mouth twisted into an unreadable expression._

" _Hel," Elsa breathed. She did not lower her arm, keeping her left hand pointed at Hel as her icy power swirled around her forearm. "Return Anna to me," Elsa said, making her voice firm despite how shaken she was emotionally by the imposter-Anna._

 _Hel shook her head slowly, and it seemed as though the human half of her face was even... sad? "I will not," said Hel, her voice rasping but oddly gentle._

" _Why not?!" Elsa cried, her voice tight with fading hope and frustration._

" _Because that is not the way of things," spoke the death-goddess, who slowly took a few steps toward Elsa. "You know this, though your heart does not want to accept it."_

" _Please bring her back to me," Elsa said, her voice wavering as she spoke, trying to inject all the pain she was feeling into her words. "The blizzard I've created in my sorrow and fear is going to bring about an icy Ragnarok, an end to all things, and it can only be stopped with Anna!"_

 _Hel shook her head slowly as she continued to slowly, patiently walk closer to Elsa. "Anna is a mortal, and their time is short. They are the most beautiful of flowers, growing proud and hopeful, blooming brightly and intensely, their very being suffused with color and emotion and life. Then they fade, then wither, then die, their beauty fleeting but all the more precious for its brevity."_

 _Hel stopped as the storm surrounding them intensified further, stretching inward to blow over the two of them. Even the goddess of death felt herself shiver in the teeth of the magical cold, biting and bitter like nothing she had ever felt. She was still roughly ten meters away, but Elsa's anguish was evident even through the swirling snow. "But I_ can _reunite you with your Anna," Hel finally spoke, having to raise her voice to be heard._

 _Elsa looked up, meeting Hel's asymmetric gaze. "W-what are you talking about?" she stammered, watching Hel through the fiercely blowing gusts of snow and ice._

" _I can take you to her," Hel said, beginning to walk forward again, her steps still measured but slightly more urgent than before. "You can be together again."_

 _Elsa's chin trembled. She knew what Hel was offering. And she knew that her pain, her anguish would never end as long as she and Anna were separated._

 _She nodded, sadly, as she accepted her fate. All things that live must die. And all things that die will lead to new life. If being with Anna meant an eternity in Helheim, then they would find beauty and joy and love in the shadows of that dark place._

 _Elsa knelt, lowering her head and accepting her death, a small price to pay to be reunited with her True Love. Hel pressed forward, battling the fearsome wind, which seemed to grow more and more powerful with each step the tall goddess took._

 _As she waited for the sting of death, Elsa thought about how upset Anna would be with her. This isn't what Anna would have wanted, and Elsa knew it. Anna had told her she would be patiently waiting for Elsa no matter how long it took, but Elsa couldn't even make it a week on her own._

 _She had lasted nearly thirteen years without Anna the first time. Thinking about those dreadful years made Elsa's heart ache even more. They were misery. Torture. She wouldn't want Anna to suffer that way again. This was going to be best for both of them, to say nothing of the nine worlds currently jeopardized by Elsa's runaway magic (as much as Niflheim could be jeopardized by even more ice and snow). Elsa's death would end this storm and save everything, and she and Anna would be reunited once more, this time for eternity._

 _So why did it feel to Elsa like she was making a terrible mistake?_

—O—

Knocking on the pub's door made Tove jump.

Knowing who it had to be so early in the morning, Tove sighed and slowly crossed the open space of the pub's main room. She left her hard cider on the small table where she had been sitting for the last two hours. She didn't drink—it was never a good idea for someone who owned a pub to do so—and she had nursed and sipped at the single drink the entire time she had sat there, alone in the darkness.

She didn't know why Dani was going back. Guilt, she supposed, a card that parents knew how to play all too well. Maybe threats of some kind; Dani wouldn't go into details about what her parents had said, only that she had to go back.

She didn't want to go. Both Tove and Dani knew it. But whether it was through obligation or intimidation, Dani had told Tove, tearfully and emotionally, that she couldn't stay. That she would be back, that they would stay friends, but Tove hadn't heard the ring of believability in the blonde's words, only the numbness of defeat.

As Tove opened the pub's door, Karla's cheery round face appeared, her dark curls bouncing with the short jerk of her head to look up at Tove. "Hi!" she said, her voice entirely too happy for Tove to deal with at the moment.

When Tove turned and walked away without replying, Karla's face fell. "She's going back, isn't she?" the girl asked quietly as she stepped inside, closing the door behind her. The sun was shining, snow was thinning, and the roads were finally passable. But the darkness and glum mood inside the Two Queens presented an entirely different atmosphere.

Tove finally nodded, her back still turned to Karla. "Yes," she finally breathed out. "Her parents called her last night."

"Oh."

"It was... not a pleasant conversation."

"It sounds like it was pretty bad."

Tove nodded and turned, and now Karla could see the shining tracks of tears down Tove's face as the dawning light outside began to illuminate the interior of the pub through the large windows.

"Oh, Tove," Karla said, opening her eyes and pulling Tove into a much-needed hug.

"I love her," Tove croaked out weakly. "I don't care that I've only known her a little over two weeks. I _love_ her."

Karla nodded. She knew too. She could see it. "She loves you, too, you know," she whispered to Tove.

Tove's eyes clenched tightly, despite them already being closed. "She tried to tell them that," she said through her sobs. "She was going to stay, until they did whatever they did to her, whatever awful things they said to her."

The two of them stood quietly for a bit, Karla trying to comfort her friend.

"I've been down here for the last two hours," Tove finally said. "While she was packing." She sniffed loudly, then swallowed. "I— I couldn't trust myself," she sputtered out, "not to try and plead with her to stay, to do whatever it took to change her mind." She closed her eyes again, ashamed at the thoughts that had run through her mind at that time, of the ways she might be able to coerce Dani to stay, to seduce her or tempt her. But none of them would have been fair, or right. It would have been manipulating someone Tove cared about deeply, and that would leave a stain on both their souls that might never fade.

"I have to let her go," Tove sobbed, burying her face in the shoulder of Karla's navy coat. "Because I love her."

"Have you told her?" Karla finally asked, pulling back enough to look into Tove's red eyes.

Tove shook her head. "She knows I care about her. I kissed her the other night."

"Did she kiss back?" Karla asked, surprise written across her face.

Tove nodded. "She did, and she said it was the best kiss she had ever had. Then she told me she wasn't gay." Before Karla could offer her opinion on that, Tove interrupted her. "I can't tell her, Karla. I can't hit her with that, right before she's flying back to the States, back to her home and her life. That isn't something you do to a friend."

Karla smiled sadly, reached up to cup Tove's left cheek with her bare right hand. "You're too nice for your own good, Tove," she said softly.

"I know," said Tove, nodding weakly. "But it's who I am. It's who I have to be."

"I know," Karla replied quietly. She stretched up and placed a quick kiss on Tove's cheek. "She's a fool for leaving you," the girl said sadly.

"She's doing what she feels like she has to do," Tove replied, her face sorrowful but resigned. "And I have to respect her decision and support her, no matter what that decision is."

The sound of the door from the stairs leading upstairs opening was surprisingly loud in the quiet, still pub. Karla and Tove stepped apart, both turning to see Dani, her camera bag and laptop slung over her right shoulder and her rolling suitcase standing in front of her, its handle fully extended.

"The car's out front," Karla said, clearing her throat once. "It's plenty warm." She looked back and forth between Dani and Tove. "I'll just wait outside. Take as long as you need to. Flight doesn't leave for three hours."

As the girl stepped back outside, a beam of soft golden light shone in through the open door, illuminating the wooden floor and the bar briefly before the door closed, plunging the room back into shadows again.

For long seconds Tove and Dani simply looked at each other, only five meters apart but separated by so much more. Then Dani ran forward, grabbing Tove's head with her hands and kissing the brunette, passionately, deeply for several wonderful seconds. Tove responded by throwing her arms around Dani, hugging her tightly as the two of them cried through their kiss, their tears leaking through their lips as they parted and reconnected again and again, the taste of salt mixing with a desperate heat.

Finally they pulled apart. Dani's eyes were flooded with tears, running so heavily down her face that they dripped onto her coat and her shirt. Tove's were the same, pupils wide and frantic.

Then Dani turned her head and stepped away, grabbing the handle of her suitcase and practically running out of the pub, the wheels of the suitcase bouncing awkwardly off the ground as the suitcase hopped along behind her.

—O—

The drive to the airport might have had beautiful scenery. It might have detoured along the edge of Hell. Dani wouldn't have known, because she sat in the floorboard of the back of the Land Rover, head buried between her knees as she cried uncontrollably.

She knew she had broken Tove's heart. She had also broken her _own_ heart, and she knew it.

She wanted to stay. More than anything else, she wanted to stay. But she couldn't. It would have meant the loss of her family, although she hated her parents right now, the loss of her apartment, the loss of most her friends and the way of life she had grown up with.

Her thoughts raced for the thirty minutes they were driving, fixating again and again upon the two kisses she had shared with Tove, how powerful and heartfelt and _real_ they felt.

She would never experience another kiss like that ever again. And she wouldn't deserve to. Not after what she had just done, walking away from a truly good person, someone who loved her, who was offering her heart to Dani.

Dani's face trembled as her entire body shook. It felt like she was dying, both inside and out, like she had rejected something as essential to her survival as oxygen, and her body was fatally punishing her for her arrogance.

She thought of Tove's voice, patiently telling her the story of Anna and Elsa. Of what the two women went through, to face their entire country and announce their love for each other, to stand tall in the face of withering criticism. Of course they were scared. But they followed their hearts anyway, and they stood together against all those who tried to pull them apart. They changed their lives and their country by standing up for their love.

She sucked in a shaky breath, feeling her heart briefly pause as it skipped a beat before resuming its pounding rhythm.

She had to go back.

She was wrong to leave. Maybe it wasn't too late. Mayb—

The Land Rover jerking to a stop forcibly wrenched Dani from her thoughts, her pulse hammering in the back of her head. She could still fix this.

"Karla!" she cried out, scrambling to pull herself off the floor and back into the rear seats so she could see where they were. "Karla, we have to—"

The sight of the blue door of the Two Queens faced her as she looked out the side window. She laughed once, not believing what she was seeing, uncertain if it was real or not.

She swiveled her head to see Karla turned around in the front seat watching her, a smug grin on the girl's face. "I, uh, left my phone here," the girl said. "Realized it once we were close to the airport." She looked at Dani for a few seconds, then asked, "Is there anything here that _you_ forgot?"

Without another word Dani was throwing herself out the door of the Land Rover, painfully slamming her head against the Rover's roof but not caring at the moment. She ran across the sidewalk, snow still pushed to the sides, shoving the pub's door open and racing inside.

Tove turned at the sound, her tear-streaked face frozen in shock as she tried to process what she was seeing.

Dani didn't stop until she had grabbed Tove and was kissing her with complete abandon, pushing the two of them back against the nearest wall, and if not for that wall, they'd have wound up on the floor from their momentum.

"I love you," Dani said, half-whisper, half-plea between kisses. "I love you, I love you!"

Tove began crying again. "I love you, too," she replied, trying to catch her breath to keep up with Dani's vigorous kissing.

"I'm not leaving you," Dani said. "Not now, not ever."

"You'll have to, for your work," Tove managed to get out through the corner of Dani's mouth.

"Yeah, but I'll come back," Dani replied, her voice thick. "My heart's never leaving you, Tove."

After another few minutes of kissing, the two of them finally paused to catch their breath. Both faces were red and flushed, eyes still bloodshot, lips red, hair disheveled as they stood there panting, neither one willing to release the other for a second.

Finally Tove grinned. "Told you the Festival of Love was powerful," she said, lifting her right arm to tap her finger against the wall behind them.

Dani tilted her head enough to see the faces of Elsa and Anna looking back at them from one of the large Festival posters, their faces pressed together cheek to cheek as they smiled at Dani from the main image of the poster.

"I believe you," Dani replied, kissing Tove again. "And now I believe in them, too," she added before closing her eyes and getting lost in their kissing, enjoying the feeling of her heart swelling with happiness and joy.

—O—

Karla sat in the Land Rover outside, debating how long she should wait to take the American woman's suitcase and bags inside.

As she sang quietly to herself, fingertips tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel, she saw Astrid walking toward her along the sidewalk, the woman's gaze fixed quite clearly on the black Land Rover. As Astrid drew near, Karla scooted over into the passenger's seat and opened the door, then moved back to the driver's seat as Astrid looked around, then slid into the Rover, closing the door behind her.

"Took them long enough," Astrid harrumphed, turning to look at the main window of the pub. It was still too dark inside and too bright outside to all the way into the bar, but she had a very good idea what was occurring inside.

"Yeah, I was beginning to really worry there," replied Karla, lifting her arm to tilt the rear-view mirror to check her reflection. "They were both too stubborn for their own good."

A shimmering glow briefly filled the cabin of the Land Rover, concealed from the outside by the tinted windows. When the glow died down, Karla's dark curly hair had been replaced by flowing cinnamon hair, long and straight inside of in its more usual twin braids. She smiled at the platinum blonde sitting beside her where Astrid had been, meeting sapphire blues that beamed back at her with utter devotion and love.

"I'm glad we didn't give up on them," Anna said.

"We weren't going to give up on them," replied Elsa, giving her wife a knowing smile that always sent a thrill down Anna's spine. "They had both been through _so_ much. They needed each other."

"To heal their hearts," Anna said, nodding as she shifted to where she could look into the pub.

Elsa turned to do the same, their vision clearly showing them the two women who were in the process of joining their hearts together. "There'll be some fights and tough times ahead of them, but they'll make it through now that they have each other."

Anna stayed quiet until Elsa turned to look at her again. She smiled at Elsa. "Just like two stubborn people I happen to know, right?" she asked, placing her left hand on Elsa's where it rested on Anna's thigh.

"Exactly," Elsa said, leaning forward and kissing her mate of many, many years. "I think it's probably time for 'Astrid' and 'Karla' to move on, don't you?" she said after they broke their loving kiss.

"Let's stay until the Festival is over," Anna said, freckles sliding along her cheeks as she smiled. "You know you love it just as much as I do."

Elsa matched Anna's smile, then reached up and lightly touched the tip of Anna's nose with her index finger. "I'm fine with serving for another week."

Anna grinned. "Well, you know I'd break more dishes and glasses than I could pay off. Plus your butt looks really good in those jeans."

Elsa looked over her shoulder as she turned toward the car door. "You know I wear them for you," she said, giving Anna a wink before shimmering filled the vehicle again, fading to reveal Astrid and Karla once more.

As "Astrid" opened the door, she turned to look back into the Rover. "Love you," she said quietly, holding the door ajar.

"Love you too," replied "Karla," smiling and blowing a kiss to her mate.

—O—

 _As Elsa knelt there in the snow and driving wind, her doubt continued to gnaw at her. That doubt fueled the raging storm, already plunging the nine worlds into an ice age that even old Ymir himself would have been pleased with._

 _Patiently Elsa waited, minute after minute, trying to think only of Anna, of seeing Anna's face, of kissing Anna's lips, of hearing Anna's voice again._

 _Yet the sting of death never came._

 _Finally Elsa opened her eyes and lifted her head._

 _There, less than an meter away, stood Hel, encased entirely in ice. Her outstretched hand reached toward Elsa, but the storm made sure it would never touch her._

 _Elsa stood, uncertain if she should feel relief or anger while instead frustration reigned over her thoughts. She started toward Hel when a blinding flash of light and crack of thunder sounded behind her._

 _Instantly Elsa threw up a shield of ice between her and whomever or whatever had made that noise. Her first thought was Thor, but a quick glance in his direction revealed the thunderer remained securely in his icy block. Mjolnir was the same, still captured in mid-flight by Elsa's ice roughly two meters away._

 _Curious as to who would be the next to try and kill her, Elsa dissolved her ice wall but remained prepared to instantly conjure it again should that be necessary._

 _The identity of her latest visitor was evident as she looked him over, but despite all she had seen and experienced already that day, she was still stunned at who stood before her now._

" _Odin," Elsa said quietly, steeling herself for another battle, one she likely could not win._

" _Your storm has nearly frozen all, young Elsa," said Odin One-Eye, holding his great and terrible spear Gungnir tightly in his right hand. "The opportunity to end this scourge and reverse the damage you have done is fleeting."_

" _I can stop it if I have Anna!" Elsa screamed at the All-father, all sense of propriety for the lord of the gods swept away in her emotional turmoil._

 _Instead of answering with words, Odin began to sing quietly, his voice deep as the spoken runes of power began to charge the very air around him, gathering and building power. Elsa's emotions warred within her, leaving her unsure of whether she should fight, flee or simply surrender to her death, as she had been willing to do minutes earlier but was hesitant to do now._

" _STOP!" screamed a voice from beside the two gods, off to Elsa's left and Odin's right._

 _Odin's runesinging halted, as did the frost swirling of its own accord around Elsa's hands and arms. The two of them turned to see a slight, willowy blonde woman in a long green dress standing there, holding what looked like a basket. She was shivering in the cold, but she stood completely still, facing the two gods locked in their standoff. Odin recognized the young, quiet goddess Idun, but Elsa had no idea who she was._

" _Elsa," spoke the young woman, smiling as if she knew the greatest secret in all the nine worlds. "I have someone here who wants to see you."_

 _Elsa stood there, dumbfounded, until Idun stepped to the side, revealing someone who had standing behind her._

 _Elsa felt her breath leave her lungs. "A-Anna?" she gasped._

 _In reply, the redhead wearing a simple gray frock ran forward at full speed, arms pumping, fists clenched. Elsa had only a few seconds to process that Anna was young again, now that her soul had been freed from its old, worn-out body. Then Anna was upon her, her arms wrapped around Elsa's chest and her head buried in the bend between Elsa's left shoulder and neck. Elsa's arms encircled Anna of their own accord as Elsa closed her eyes and breathed in Anna, her warmth, her smell, the feel of her skin, the feel of her hair, the sobbing of relief that came from deep within both of them as the two mates broke down with joy and relief at being reunited once more._

 _The singing of Elsa's magic deep within and around her told her that this was no imposter, no deception, and the way Anna kissed her only confirmed that._

" _I love you, I love you, I love you," were whispered over and over from Anna's lips as she kissed Elsa's neck, shoulder, cheek, face and finally lips, ending with a prolonged kiss that tasted sweeter than any fruit, any meal, any drink Elsa had ever experienced. Elsa was unable to form words until the two of them retracted their heads slightly, just enough for Elsa to look into the brilliant green-blue eyes that been her entire world for over sixty years._

" _I love you more than anything in existence," Elsa said truthfully, and as she spoke the words, the great blizzard sputtered and broke, the snow and ice evaporating as quickly as a soap bubble bursting at a child's touch._

 _All across the nine worlds, the ice and snow caused by Elsa's uncontrolled magic disappeared, leaving eight worlds once again free of winter's chilling grasp and the ninth, Niflheim, with a bit less snow and ice than it had a few minutes earlier._

 _Inside the main bedroom of the Ice Palace, a frozen Tyr fell backward as the ice imprisoning him dissolved; as he scrambled away so that the icy blade that had frozen him wouldn't fall on him, he watched as it levitated back toward its place on the wall, hanging itself neatly back in its former position._

 _On the plateau around Elsa, Anna, Odin and Idun, Thor fell forward from his awkward position after he had thrown Mjolnir, burying his face in the snow. The fierce hammer, its momentum arrested within Elsa's icy block, simply fell to the frozen ground with a wet thump._

 _Hel and Loki blinked at the sudden release from the numbing embrace of their icy prisons. Seeing the others gathered nearby, Loki quickly slipped his poisoned dagger back into the long sleeve of his tunic, while Hel blinked the frost away from her one good eye and wiped it away from the other side of her face. Seeing Loki, she narrowed her eyes briefly. "Father," she said flatly._

" _Daughter," replied Loki, equally terse._

 _Odin simply stood in amazement as the storm vanished, the last lingering notes of its magic having changed from pain and rage to joy and love._

 _Freya quickly looked around, only to feel her heart surge as she saw the two lovers in each other's arms. She smiled and closed her eyes, relishing in the feelings of love that radiated from the two mates like warmth from the sun._

 _Elsa looked at Anna's face, once again youthful and dotted with the freckles she adored instead of the age spots left by time. She felt Anna's arms, once more wiry and strong, and her body, taut and lean like when they had just been married. "How did you..." Elsa asked, her mind having great difficulty processing how this happened._

 _Anna grinned and held up her right hand, opening her fist to reveal the core of a golden apple, only a small amount of skin remaining around the stem and base. "Idun over there found me in Helheim and gave me this," she said proudly._

" _I made her eat two," Idun spoke, raising her voice to be heard clearly across the distance. "Just to make sure," she added with a smile._

" _But h-how did you find her?" Elsa stammered, unable to take her eyes off Anna due to worry her wife would vanish should she look away._

 _Idun smiled. "It was easy," she said. "I just looked for the one spot in all of Helheim the storm refused to freeze, and there, in the center of that one place spared by the snow and ice, was Anna."_

 _Elsa nodded, knowing how much the cold loved and respected her partner. She looked Anna up and down, marveling at how healthy and vibrant the redhead was once more. "So you're alive again?" Elsa asked Anna, her mind racing uncontrollably but her spirit bathed in joy._

" _I am," Anna replied before closing her eyes and leaning against Elsa, tucking her forehead just beneath Elsa's jaw. "And I never have to leave you again."_

" _She's a goddess now," said Idun, walking toward the two women. As she drew nearer, Elsa could see the blonde woman's basket was full of plump apples, shining like molten gold in the newly returned sunlight. "Just like you, Elsa. You'll both still age, but slowly and at the same time."_

" _We can grow old together," Anna said, beaming as she stared into Elsa's bright blue eyes again, blinking tears of happiness away. "Like we always wanted."_

 _Elsa was speechless, so she simply smiled widely and kissed Anna once again._

" _Her power is too dangerous!" shouted Odin, making all those assembled turn to regard him. The All-father stood, Gungnir raised in his right hand, pointing at Elsa and Anna._

 _Before anyone could speak, Anna quickly broke out of Elsa's arms and ran to the side, seizing Mjolnir from where it lay in a small indentation it had made when it fell. Now brandishing the fell weapon, Anna ran back over to interpose herself between Odin and Elsa._

" _I don't care if she's dangerous or not," Anna said hotly, Mjolnir extended toward Odin. "Elsa's my wife, and_ no one _is going to hurt her!"_

 _All was silent across the frozen plateau, save for the low, deep grumbling in Odin's chest. "You dare threaten Odin One-Eye, lord of the gods?!" he called out, standing nearly half a meter taller than the redheaded woman between him and his target._

 _Anna held his angry glare before nodding defiantly. "I do," she said, eliciting gasps from several of those in witness. "Because you threatened my wife."_

" _Do you know what you hold in your hand, young goddess?" asked Odin, his tone surprisingly lightening slightly._

" _Looks like the hammer of Thor to me," replied Anna, never taking her eyes off the old god._

 _For long seconds the two stared at each other, hands tensing slightly, then relaxing slightly as the two locked gazes, one old, wise and powerful, the other young, brash and deeply in love. Those seconds turned into a minute, then two._

 _And then Odin's craggy face stretched into a smile, his white beard shifting as he threw back his head and laughed._

 _Wary of any tricks, Anna did not relax her stance, instead gripping Mjolnir tightly as she continued to watch the All-father, who seemed to be consumed with mirth at the best joke he had ever heard. The other gods also remained concerned, and Elsa moved to stand closer to Anna, in case they needed to protect each other._

 _Finally Odin stopped laughing, but the smile remained on his face. "So be it!" he called out. "I yield in this to you, young goddess," he said, opening his hand to let Gungnir disappear in a flash. He continued to chuckle as he walked forward, even his casual stride possessing a gravity to each step._

 _As he reached Anna and Elsa, he looked at them and smiled. "You remind me much of my older son, young goddess," he said proudly. "Fierce of spirit, brave of heart."_

" _Um," Anna said, glancing around quickly. "Thanks, I think."_

" _'Tis high praise!" Odin said, "For..." he said, clearly waiting for something._

" _Anna," said Elsa from just behind Anna, resting her left hand on Anna's left shoulder. "Her name is Anna," Elsa said with a doting smile._

" _Anna!" shouted Odin. "Our newest goddess, along with her wife Elsa!" Odin's eyebrow squinted in consideration. "But what shall you be the goddess of, young Anna?" he said, as much to himself as everyone else. "Elsa has taken up the mantle of goddess of ice and cold, but—"_

" _LOVE," called out a female voice from behind Anna and Elsa._

 _They turned to see Freya approaching them, her face aglow, her breathing heavy with the power the love between the two women was feeding her. "They will be the goddesses of love," Freya said, stepping forward between Odin and Anna and Elsa to place her hands upon the two mates. "A title and responsibility they will share together." She smiled as she felt part of her power flow between her and the two young goddesses. "A duty that they will carry out marvelously." Removing her hands and stepping back, she proudly added, "I know of no one more qualified for this position."_

 _Anna turned to embrace Elsa as magic flowed through them, out of one and into the other, then back again over and over and over. Tingles skittered up and down their bodies, prompting Elsa to squirm slightly (she was ticklish, though she would vigorously deny it) and Anna to laugh out loud, both of them savoring the sensation greatly, but not nearly as much as they savored being in each other's arms once again._

 _A gentle touch on her right arm drew Anna's attention; she looked to her right to see Freya standing beside them. "You might want to give Thor his hammer back," she said quietly._

" _Oh!" Anna said, turning toward the thunderer only to be stopped by Freya's light touch once more, causing her to turn and look at the goddess of magic again._

" _Don't throw it," Freya said with a smile._

—O—

 _And so the Goddesses of Love continue their lives together to this day, encouraging others to embrace love and trust their hearts, to be true to themselves and their spirits, to maintain hope and support love wherever it may arise._

 _They think they have the best jobs ever._

—O—

 **Author's Afterword:** It feels SO GOOD to have that story out. I hope more people can read it and enjoy it, because I loved writing it. I've carried this idea around with me for over a year, and when I starting actually putting fingers to keyboard, it did most of the work by writing itself.

Thank you for being patient and taking a chance on an odd approach to a story, with two OC leads as well as Anna and Elsa as leads. The intention was to use the two different stories together to tell an overall narrative, and it feels like it came out fairly close to what I had intended.

I hope you've enjoyed this story! There's plenty more of Elsa and Anna out there, so feel free to check out some other stories and other versions of Anna and Elsa. Best wishes to all of you!


End file.
